Roar
SimilarNightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Things aren’t looking good for us right now, am I right, ladies? States are passing a historic number of anti-abortion laws, and the needle has barely moved in reaching income equality with men, particularly for Black and Latinx women. The time may not be right for a whimsical take on what it’s like to be a woman in the 21st century, but Apple TV+’s anthology Roar has enough of an edge on it to make it entertaining without being condescending or out of touch. Though it suffers from the typical unevenness of an anthology series, even its weaker entries are still solid, and their blessedly short half-hour runtime makes it all go down smooth. Continue Reading →
Ambulance
SimilarBen-Hur (1959),
Jackie Brown (1997) Minority Report (2002), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Shining (1980),
About an hour into Ambulance, Michael Bay's latest symphony of steel and bullets and explosions, the two brothers-turned-robbers at the center of this tale (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) take a moment of calm amidst their high-speed run through the alleys and freeways of LA. No, they don't stop driving; they've got a flood of cops on their tail. But the least they can do, with their lives on the line and a cop (Jackson White) bleeding out in the back of their stolen ambulance, is throw on some Airpods and sing along together to Christopher Cross' "Sailing." Continue Reading →
Life & Beth
SimilarUnforgettable,
Watch afterSuits, The Peripheral,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Amy Schumer made a name for herself in the comedy scene as a stand-up for whom sex and booze were cornerstones of her act. She was a refreshing performer, helping to break down barriers for women in comedy, and showing the world that female comedians can be just as raunchy as their male counterparts. Her newest venture is an evolution of the party girl in Hulu’s Life & Beth, with Schumer portraying titular character Beth, a woman “barreling towards 40,” amid an identity crisis. The series, like Beth, is also in an identity crisis, as structurally it struggles in its episodic format. However, there are some strong performances by Schumer and a supporting cast of comedic heavy-hitters that make the series an entertaining watch. Continue Reading →
Severance
Do you hate your work life infringing on your home life? Can you not stand having to deal with outside issues while at your desk? The Severance program just might be for you. Continue Reading →
The Lost Daughter
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), tick tick... BOOM! (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StarringDagmara Domińczyk,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Much to the Republican Party’s dismay, the birth rate in the United States has been gradually on the decline, hitting an all-time low in 2020. Couples are not only waiting longer to have children, they’re having less of them, with an average of 1.6 per family. While climate change and cost of living expenses are the primary factors in the decision to have fewer children (or none at all), a small part of it can also be attributed to more people accepting a difficult truth: that raising children can be an incredibly hard and thankless task. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an assured debut as a writer and director in her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter, a complicated and strangely moving psychological drama/thriller about two women who bond over this truth. Continue Reading →
The Survivor
StudioBron Studios, Endeavor Content,
The post-WWII boxing drama wastes Ben Foster and Vicky Krieps in an overfamiliar prestige drama that botches its handling of the Holocaust.
For a one-time perennial Oscar-contending director, Barry Levinson has had one of the most curious careers of the 21st century. His recent work includes thrillers and comedies like Envy, The Bay, and Man of the Year. With Bill Murray vehicle Rock the Kasbah, Levinson seemed to have mildly scraped the zeitgeist once again. Now, with The Survivor he’s plunging back into the Oscar/prestige realm with The Survivor, a black-and-white Holocaust/ boxing drama.
The Survivor is based on the life of Harry (original name Hertzko) Haft, a Jewish man who survived Auschwitz by boxing as a ringer for a Nazi commander. When this becomes public knowledge, Haft is derided as a traitor by New York’s Jewish community. In execution, The Survivor hews closely to the standard patterns of prestige drama, to the point that there is very little distinct or interesting about its craft. Continue Reading →
Nine Perfect Strangers
SimilarSám vojak v poli,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Big Little Lies and The Undoing creator David E. Kelley returns to the small screen for another collaboration with Nicole Kidman with Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2018 bestseller. The book received mixed reviews, though, despite its commercial success, and the series struggles with the shallow nature of its story. Coming on the heels of The White Lotus, another show depicting rich, difficult people at a beautiful location, Kelley struggles to capture the suspense of his previous endeavors. Continue Reading →
Pig
Similar28 Weeks Later (2007), I Stand Alone (1998),
StudioEndeavor Content,
The sense of rot in Pig is almost constant. There’s progression but no real growth for much of its short runtime, no feeling of true human connection through its first half. For a while, its empathy only comes from within. It comes within its hero; its intimacy only blossoms when there’s no one else to dry it from the roots up. The man in question is Robin (Nicolas Cage). He was a well-known chef but has since jumped ship, living in a shack in the Oregon wilderness and hunting truffles with his foraging pig. His only consistent human interaction is with a yuppie-type named Amir (Alex Wolff), but that’s strictly transactional. Continue Reading →
In the Heights
SimilarDriving Miss Daisy (1989),
Watch aftertick tick... BOOM! (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StudioEndeavor Content,
During his sophomore year at Wesleyan University in 1999, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a draft of his debut play. At first, he “had one song and a title: In the Heights.” Soon after, the musical would premiere at the school’s student-run theater. John Buffalo Miller and Quiara Alegría Hudes helped revise it in the following years, and then it snowballed. It premiered off-Broadway in 2005, went to Broadway in 2008, and had international tours throughout the 2010s. A film adaptation felt like the natural next step, and over two decades after its inception, it arrives with a screenplay from Hudes and Jon M. Chu directing. Continue Reading →
Boys from County Hell
Watch afterEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Evil Dead Rise (2023),
StudioEndeavor Content,
The Pogues song about drunken hooligans causing mayhem, “Boys From The County Hell”, doesn’t have much in common with this short and nasty Irish vampire film besides the title. That’s until you get to the eyebrow raising lyric, “We'll eat your frigging entrails and we won't give a damn.” Ditto for this movie. Continue Reading →
Penguin Bloom
Penguin Bloom director Glendyn Ivin is one of the leading names in Australian television, which checks out all too well given that the execution of this admittedly inspirational story has “made-for-TV” written all over it. Of course, the real frustrating part is that there are occasional glimpses of a better movie that's focused on exploring these characters beyond a surface-level peek of what it's like to come to terms with a disability or be a caretaker for someone who’s disabled. Continue Reading →