821 Best Releases From the Genre Drama (Page 37)

Mid-December is usually the sweet spot for releasing high-caliber films in cinemas before awards season kicks off. This year most cinemas may be closed, but that won’t stop prestige dramas from hitting the small screens in 2020. Roaring onto the scene is Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Directed by George C. Wolfe, adapted from August Wilson’s play by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, this film features powerhouse performances by Viola Davis at Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Boseman in his final film performance as trumpeter Levee.  Continue Reading →

The bones of “Terra Firma Pt. II'' are good. The core of the episode pays off Emperor Georgiou’s (Michelle Yeoh) return engagement with the Mirror Universe with conviction. She chooses to keep Mirror Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) alive, attempting to break her daughter toward the Emperor’s new way of thinking rather than dispose of her. She decides to save Saru (Doug Jones) and shares the truth about the Vahar’ai with him rather than letting him die. She moves, slowly but firmly, toward peace and diplomatic solutions in lieu of total and merciless domination. Continue Reading →

As TV’s best series about mental illness and addiction comes to an end, our hero BoJack doesn’t get closure, exactly (because there’s really no such thing), but is further down the road to self-awareness and real insight than he ever was. He may end up making yet another bad decision based both on self-loathing and selfishness, but there has to be some reason he keeps getting another chance, another hit at the reset button. If you’ve ever struggled with depression and/or addiction, then you know how both wonderful and absolutely terrifying that feels. Though the final season stumbles a bit with extended bits on cancel culture and open relationships, it ends on a subtle, melancholy note: “Life’s a bitch, and then you go on living.” [Gena Radcliffe] Continue Reading →

When I saw that Netflix made all ten hour-long episodes of its new ballet show, Tiny Pretty Things, available to review, I was intimidated. Even during a global pandemic, ten hours of uninterrupted solo TV time can be hard to come by on short notice. Luckily, Tiny Pretty Things was built to be binged. Fast-paced and drama-filled, the story whisks viewers away from their own lives and plunges them into a grim, seedy world of backroom dealings, sexual blackmail, Machiavellian schemes, and, finally, ballet.  Continue Reading →

This review was written jointly by Spool staff writers Beau North and Megan Sunday. Continue Reading →

At first glance, Disney+’s latest sports biopic Safety is a film about a particularly extraordinary individual. It is, after all, about a young man who faces insurmountable odds and comes out on top. But while its subject is a compelling protagonist, the real focus of the movie is an extraordinary community.  Continue Reading →

Previously on The Mandalorian: Pain.  Continue Reading →

There are two moments in The Wilds that so succinctly summarize the show’s tone, we have just have to start with them. In the first episode, Leah Rilke (Sarah Pidgeon) barrels directly down the lens of the camera and declares the life of a teenage girl in America in the 21st Century to be literal hell as if in direct conversation with the audience. Then, later in the series, Rachel Reid (Reign Edwards) searches for the word melodrama, applying it to the actions of her fellow island isolated survivors. And that’s The Wilds for you. Tremendously unsubtle and one-hundred percent aware of it. It also happens to be very good. Continue Reading →

The Prom, the latest entry in Ryan Murphy’s incessant takeover of Netflix, follows a group of down-and-out Broadway stars (played by Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells) as they try to resurrect their waning careers with some good PR. The cause that these actors choose is that of Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Perlman), a teenager in a small town in Indiana who wants to attend her school’s prom with her girlfriend, but the PTA won’t allow it. The group decides to charge into this small town and force them to have an inclusive prom. What ensues is a shallow but sweet musical about fighting for the chance to love -- fitting for an adaptation of a whimsical, if lightweight, 2016 Broadway musical.  Continue Reading →

It's not the first time the two have worked together, having met to build the score for 2016's Lion and working on several projects since. Together, they've built a clear sense of collaboration which bears out in Ammonite's intimate, complicated scoring -- which echoes the growing intimacy between Winslet and Ronan as, respectively, 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning and a young woman she's tasked to care for. Continue Reading →

With the announcement last month that Amazon Prime Video's The Expanse will end after season six, it's bittersweet for many fans (including myself) to see the true end of the show in front of us. Still, it's a miracle we got three more seasons of the show at all, considering Amazon's hail-Mary save after Syfy's cancelation of the show post-season 3. Season 4 (the first after its move to Amazon) was an ambitious, if slightly slower and atonal, adventure; if the first three episodes of season 5 are any indicator, The Expanse is back to what it does best, expanding its scope while getting more personal than ever. Continue Reading →

Steven Soderbergh may be best known for his remake of Ocean’s Eleven, a commercial hit featuring a cast of dashing male stars (and Julia Roberts). Who needs eleven when you’ve got Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen aboard a real-life ocean liner? In Soderbergh’s newest, Let Them All Talk, he embarks on a return trip to his indie filmmaking roots, bringing along celebrity pals and a few tricks of the trade he’s learned in his prolific career. Continue Reading →

Back in mid-March, Simon Boyes called Adam Mason about an idea for a pandemic thriller. The two writing partners quickly sketched out a plot outline, it began to pick up traction, and it was only a matter of days before Michael Bay came on to the project as a producer. The name would be Songbird. It’d also begin filming that July with Mason directing and come out in December, less than nine months after its inception. All of this said, it’s hard to dissect what’s worse: the fact that people exploited a global tragedy so quickly, or the final result. Continue Reading →

An adaptation of his play Outside Mullingar, which was panned by Irish critics, John Patrick Shanley’s Wild Mountain Thyme follows a pair of neighboring farmers as they try to find love despite an ongoing land dispute they get caught up in. When the trailer to this film came out, it was immediately mocked for awful accents and a questionable depiction of Ireland. From watching, it turns out those criticisms were correct. This is a soulless film that does little more than create some pretty shots for the Irish tourist board. Continue Reading →

Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) are miserable together, that much is immediately clear. They snipe at each other over the course of their date night, a substitute for therapy they can’t afford that of course Matteo has forgotten about. They have a new baby at home and a new mortgage and a lot of old, festering issues that all seem to be bubbling to a head when the unthinkable happens. A car careens into theirs, cutting their argument short, killing Adrienne. Probably. She thinks. She… isn’t exactly sure. Continue Reading →

Although it’s since been cemented as a derided flop upon its release 30 years ago this month, The Godfather: Part III (1990) was neither the critical nor critical disaster people remember it to be. It was a decent financial success and would go on to be nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. However, a number of factors cropped up to help trash its reputation. It had a chaotic production that reached its apex when red-hot star Winona Ryder, cast as Mary Corleone, left the production just before her scenes were to be shot. Francis Ford Coppola replaced her with his non-actress daughter Sofia. Continue Reading →

The Erwin Brothers' Christian romance aims for crossover appeal, but can't quite rock its way into the free world. How does one deal with grief? For many, the loss of a loved one can be devastating and lead them into depression and feelings of hopelessness. For others, the pain of loss can be used to create something beautiful and give others hope. Directing duo Jon and Andrew Erwin (I Can Only Imagine) use the story of popular Christian artist Jeremy Camp and the loss of his first wife, Melissa, as a way to inspire others who are dealing with grief in I Still Believe. The result is a movie that is often touching, but won’t do much for those outside of its target audience. Unlike most musician biopics, which tend to showcase the artist’s entire life, I Still Believe focuses entirely on Jeremy’s relationship with Melissa. While there are multiple scenes of concerts and radio interviews, Jeremy’s musical career only features in the movie insofar as to facilitate the love story. Indeed, to call this a biopic is almost inaccurate. Although the film is biographical it’s more of an examination of love and faith than the story of Jeremy’s life.  Indeed, the first act of the film feels like your typical romantic drama. A wide-eyed Jeremy Camp (KJ Apa, Riverdale) manages to talk his way backstage for musician Jean-Luc (Nathan Parsons, Roswell: New Mexico). While there, he spots Melissa (Britt Robertson, A Dog’s Purpose) in the crowd; it’s love at first sight.  Continue Reading →

Liz Garbus' Sundance drama offers a gut-wrenching, if muddled, look at a true crime disappearance. In May of 2010, Shannan Gilbert was supposed to visit her family for dinner. She never showed up. As her family searched for her, the bodies of four women were found near the Long Island community of Oak Beach. The police determined that these women were probably killed by the same person, dubbed the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK), and they most likely solicited the women as sex workers via Craigslist. Shannan’s mother Mari believed that her daughter’s disappearance was connected to the uncovered bodies, but police maintain that they were unrelated. Desperate to uncover the truth about what happened to her daughter, Mari began her own search for justice.  This search for justice inspired Robert Kolker to write “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery”, on which Netflix’s latest crime thriller Lost Girls is based. Director Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?) aims her documentarian eye towards narrative cinema, and the result is a gut-wrenching, if somewhat muddled, experience.  Lost Girls keeps its focus squarely on Mari (Amy Ryan, Late Night) and rarely ventures into the police investigation of the case. Indeed, Mari’s lack of insight into what the police know, as well as their apparent lack of interest in the case is the main driver of the plot. The police don’t take Shannan’s disappearance seriously, due to her status as a sex worker, and much of the first act follows her hunting down people from Shannan’s life, trying to figure out where she was last seen.  Continue Reading →

David Simon and Ed Burns' adaptation of the Philip Roth novel paints a harrowing picture of an alternate America that feels all too prescient. HBO’s latest miniseries imagines a world where renowned pilot, isolationist, and anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh runs for president and defeats FDR in 1940. What follows is a rise in anti-Semitic hate and fascism throughout America. And as you watch the series, you’d be forgiven for thinking this a pretty in-your-face way to address the Trump administration. That might be true, but the series is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name which was released more than 15 years ago in 2004. If anything, Roth’s The Plot Against America has been frustratingly, dishearteningly prescient. It’s no wonder showrunners David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) were drawn to it. The show follows the Levin family (originally the Roths in the novel) as they deal with the shifting political tide and how it strains their family bonds. Father Herman (Morgan Spector) is an outspoken liberal who finds Lindbergh distasteful and disgusting. Wife Bess (Zoe Kazan) frets constantly for the safety of her family, remembering all too well how isolating it was to be the only Jewish girl in her class growing up.  Michele K. Short/HBO Cousin Alvin shares Herman’s political leanings, but is determined to act, eventually signing up for the Canadian army in order to “kill Nazis.” Meanwhile, impressionable young Sandy (Caleb Malis) grapples with his hero Lindbergh’s politics while his little brother Phillip (Azhy Robertson) tries to make sense of it all. Things are only further complicated when Bess’s sister Evelyn (Winona Ryder) falls for Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Turturro), a staunch Lindbergh supporter.  Continue Reading →

Netflix breathes new life into the tired stand-up comedian sitcom genre. The stand-up comedy dramedy is dead. It was tired after Seinfeld, and the only person that got it right since turned out to be a monster. Every other offer in the genre has either struggled with a relationship with the world outside of comedy, or an obsession with the inside world of comedy, which is not that interesting. I am sorry to say, but I do not care about anyone’s struggles to impress a booker.  The thing that Feel Good, Netflix’s new British comedy centered on the life of queer comedian Mae Martin, gets right is that stand up is still work. It doesn’t matter if your work is talking in front of other people, or working in an office. Most of the time it’s not that interesting. Our current society is so obsessed with work that the obsession tends to bleed into our media. Feel Good isn’t a show about a stand-up comedian. It's about a person who happens to be a stand-up comedian.  Mae as a character has more important things to think about than comedy. The show navigates through its first six episodes mostly focused on Mae’s relationships with George (Charlotte Ritchie), a teacher who’s never had any queer experiences, her mother, Linda (Lisa Kudrow), and her sobriety. Martin proves themself a capable actor, painting a well-made version of a person who doesn’t just love cocaine but loves getting high on any sort of obsessive behavior. Feel Good isn’t about drugs or about being queer. It's about the day to day struggle to fight our worst aspects.  Continue Reading →