This true untold story about the first Black US Marshall highlights Lawman Bass Reeves responsibilities for law enforcement in the Oklahoma Territories including Native lands. One of the most legendary lawmen in the Old West, Lawman: Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo) opens with Reeves heroically fighting in the Confederate army alongside his Texas slave owner on the eve of Reconstruction.
Despite brutal circumstances and the lawlessness of racists and prairie vigilantes, Reeves struggles to be a man with integrity in the face of immoral institutions. Crisis after...
Marsh King’s Daughter–A Companion Piece to Where the Crawdads Sing?
In this mystery thriller based on Karen Dionne’s novel of the same name, we see a story taking place in a swamp with a young girl and her mother trapped by an abusive father. The Marsh King’s Daughter opens with the ten-year old Helena [Brooklyn Prince of “Florida” (November 7, 2017 review )] in the woods with her father (Ben Mendelsohn of “Bloodline”), having a lesson in survival skills. Helena is shown how to hunt and skin wild animals as well as how to interpret animal tracks. All of these skills will prove invaluable...
Poor Things–The Lucky Devils
Poor Things, starring Emma Stone in her 2024 Academy Award-winning role, is a feminist Frankenstein-like tale based upon Alasdair’s 1992 eponymous novel.
Opening with emotionally and physically scarred mad scientist Godwin (“God”) Baxter (Willem Defoe) admiring his creation, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) on the operating table, we know immediately that God’s sinister surgery has produced a freak. He has given the gift of life back to Bella (ironically, “the beautiful”), now reborn after she jumped off the London Bridge. Pregnant before committing...
What Happened to Monday?–A Weekly Menace
The year is 2073,. Overpopulation and limited resources, especially food and fuel, have created a mandatory one-child policy called “The Child Allocation Act”. What Happened to Monday explores what such a world would look like with an autocrat as leader and mandatory enforcement with surveillance required for all citizens.
In the opening scene Terrence Settman (Willem Dafoe) is grieving watching his daughter die in giving birth to septuplets: seven identical baby girls (all of them portrayed by Noomi Rapace best known for “Girl with the Dragon...
Arctic Circle–Shivering with Fear
Set in the Lapland region of Finland, the Finnish-German three-season thriller, Arctic Circle, Nina Kautsalo (Iina Kuustonen), is determined to solve three multiple murder cases, one in each season. Nina is a single mom with a Down syndrome daughter, Venla, who is cared for by her devoted grandmother. Nina, in turn, is supported by an understanding director and her police colleagues. Besides the inevitable struggles to balance work and family, she also has to deal with Venla’s yearning to know her estranged father and also with Marita (Pihla Vittala of “Deadwind”), Nina’s...
Woman in the Wall–Imprisonment in the Magdalene Laundries
Set up as a six-episode thriller, Woman in the Wall is based on the horrific exploitation of teenage girls and young women in “the homes for unwed mothers” in Ireland. The scandal of the Magdalene Laundries has damaged the Catholic Church for over a century and a half. This fictionalized account focuses on Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson of “The Affair”, “Luther”, “Saving Mr. Banks”, “Dark Materials” among many others) and her determination to find her now thirty-year old daughter who was taken from her at the Magdalene Laundries....