The Latest Reviews For The Country Chile

In one of A Man on the Inside creator Michael Schur’s previous series—The Good Place—there’s a moment when one character explains that, as humans, we all know that we will someday die. That means we all walk around a little sad, even during our happiest moments. That kind of melancholic joy is where his newest series dwells. It’s a show with lots of laughs, excellent characters, and the pervasive knowledge that there is an end somewhere out on the horizon. For most of A Man on the Inside’s characters, that end feels close indeed. That’s because the action primarily focuses on a Senior Living facility in San Francisco, Pacific View Retirement Community. That’s where private investigator Julie Kavalenko (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) sends her newest hire, Charles Nieuwendyk (Ted Danson). The mission is simple enough. Someone stole a necklace from Evan Cubbler’s (Marc Evan Jackson, doing WASP with a side of withering contempt as only he can) mother Helen (Danielle Kennedy). He wants it back and the thief hauled in. Charles, lost in many ways after the death of his wife, sees it as an opportunity to honor his daughter Emily’s (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) request he finds something to spark his passion. Julie thinks she can’t find anyone his age nearly as spry or capable of using a phone. Stephanie Beatriz and Mary Elizabeth Ellis discuss fashion and wallpaper. Specifically, how pastels and neutrals are great for both. (Colleen E. Hayes/Netflix) In other hands, this could be an invitation to a bunch of jokes about how older adults are weird and/or gross and/or dumb. Thankfully, Schur and his collaborators Emalee Burditt and Morgan Sackett are not other hands. While there are some “this person/these people are weird” bits, they’re personality, not age-based. The show doesn’t pretend the bulk of the cast isn’t seniors but they don’t use that to other anyone. That’s not surprising given Schur plays in the same kind of “humane, but hilarious” sandbox as Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Shrinking), although Schur typically trends gentler and less ribald. Continue Reading →

At the risk of making a "getting a lot of Sorcerer vibes from this" guy out of myself, The Hunted—William Friedkin's 2003 old-master-hunts-rogue-student thriller really does make for a fascinating counterpart to his earlier men-on-a-desperate-mission masterwork. Both delve into the lives of damaged, forlorn, isolated men on perilous quests for deliverance. And both of those quests lead deep into madness. Both pointedly contrast man-made, flame-choked hellscapes (Sorcerer's exploding oil well, The Hunted's secret mission amidst the Kosovo War) with the vast, amoral green of the deep forest (Columbia and Oregon, respectively). Both turn on setpieces that thrill while maintaining a grounded (if not necessarily "realistic") feel and weave surreality in with care. Continue Reading →

With a travel book in her hands and a cigarette in her fingers, Carmen (Aline Küppenheim) deliberates what shade of paint she’d like for her walls. She wants it like a sunset but not too pink. Maybe a bit blue. After all, it’s not like she goes outside too often. Even her commutes, now to her Las Cruces beach house, are isolated. It’s 1976 in Chile, three years into dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule. While paint drips onto Carmen’s heels, defectors and accused communists fall in the streets. But hey, she’s got a home to renovate.  Continue Reading →

Cecilia (Leonor Varela) is in a bad way. She’s been twisted by years of neglect and disappointment into a coil of razor wire. She’s short with her co-workers and her children, especially queer Tomas (Enzo Ferrada Rosati), whose gender identity is taken as a personal slight. Her brother Bernardo (Marcial Tagle) is so used to her undermining him that he preempts their first meeting with an admission of his weight gain and a refusal to embrace her like a hit dog. Continue Reading →

There’s no easy way to live your dream. But if you and your quirky, goth friends can open up a business that conjures up fake macabre events for money, it becomes a very real possibility. HBO’s Los Espookys, one of the best shows of 2019, returns after a long COVID hiatus with a second season abundant with the show’s trademark deadpan humor, random visual gags, and, above all, its big heart. Continue Reading →

Patricio Guzman directs the rare political documentary that leaves viewers with a bit of optimism. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival) From his landmark three-part work The Battle of Chile to the recent The Cordillera of Dreams, documentarian Patricio Guzman has made the subject of political unrest in South America, primarily regarding the 1973 coup d’etat in his home country of Chile, the central focus of his work. His latest film, My Imaginary Country, is yet another project along those lines, but viewers expecting more of the same may be as surprised as Guzman clearly was to discover that while the images of chaos captured here may appear to be more of the same, there is something different in the air that suggests something new and hopeful is unfolding as well. Continue Reading →

Pablo Larraín’s sympathetic “fable” about Diana, Princess of Wales, also compassionately addresses the secret shame of eating disorders. CONTENT WARNING: this article addresses eating disorders and self-injury. See our spoiler-free overview of Spencer here. If Pablo Larraín’s Spencer doesn’t change your mind about royalty being aspirational, then nothing will. Sure, you’ll have access to wealth and fancy clothes, but at the cost of your time and privacy. Every part of your life, every holiday, even “off time” with your family, is scheduled down to the last minute, and everything you do is judged according to tradition and propriety. Maybe it’ll be you who breaks tradition, who makes things different through sheer force of will. But probably not. You’ll be a dress-up doll in a glass case, to be taken out and shown off whenever the occasion calls for it, whether you want to be or not. Continue Reading →

Pablo Larraín's neon-caked tale of a tattered family is ambitious if uneven eye candy that's bound to get audiences talking. In one of the more fitting opening shots in a while, Ema opens with a traffic light on fire. Behind it stands the title character (Mariana Di Girolamo) with a flamethrower slung over her shoulder and, despite what might sound glib on paper, it’s an apt metaphor for what’s to come. No stopping, no slowing down. If it’s going to go, it’s going to go. Pablo Larraín has dealt with political upheaval and reconstructing at the ruins of one’s personal life before, and now he’s doing all of it at once. In fact, it feels as if parts of his eighth film are to be remembered by viewers as a hallucination. There is, after all, no way some of this stuff actually happened like this, right? The dancing and domestic drama, sure. The spousal sparring, definitely. But the orgies and scorched earth? How about the day-glo visuals that would make for one hell of a rewatch during a fever? It isn’t all “there” throughout. Yet, it manages to present, annihilate, and reconstruct a multitude of fantasies, be they social or political, sexual or familial. After that prologue comes something tangible in comparison. Ema’s husband and leader of her dance company, Gastón (Gael García Bernal), has accidentally set their house on fire. The most pressing collateral damage comes through their adopted son, Polo (Cristián Suárez). He isn’t the most amiable kid, to say the least, and now they’ve got to return him to the agency he came from. Alas, Ema nor Gastón will take full responsibility for his behavior. On second thought, maybe that stoplight was a little more approachable after all. Continue Reading →