One Hundred Years Of Solitude (1967) by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a masterpiece of magical realism, telling the story of seven generations of the Buendía family. Sprawling over a century, the tragic circumstances in a utopian conceived town–Macondo–are revealed, where isolation as a community at...
Six Triple Eight—Hidden Figures?
Based on journalist Kevin M. Hymel’s 2019 article “Fighting a Two-Front War,” Six Triple Eight follows the inspiring story of 855 women who overcame immense barriers to sort over seventeen million pieces of backlogged mail. Sorting the mail became a priority to boost morale by ensuring soldiers stayed connected with loved ones. Their...
Man on the Inside–Outside In
In this Netflix crowd-pleaser, Man on the Inside opens with a retired curmudgeonly college professor, Charles (Ted Danson) who has recently lost his wife to dementia. Out of boredom and grief, he responds to an ad from a private investigator, (Lilah Richcreek Estrada). Someone in an upscale San Francisco retirement home has...
My Top 17 Movies and Series for 2024
This year I have seventeen films and series to recommend. Some are less well-known and under-the-radar. Also, there seemed to be more selections from DEI producers and writers, for a welcomed change!
Here are the reviews I wrote this past year with the criteria that they were available online. Of the 45 reviews I...
Black Doves–”Slow Horses” meets “The Americans”?
The six-episode Netflix mini-series Black Doves is being promoted as a Christmas holiday spy thriller, full of such fun scenes as explosions, intense gun-fight street battles and stylish upper-class British banter to mix up with the tinsel and ornaments.
Helen Webb (Keira Knightley of “Pirates of the Carribean”, “Pride and...
Day of the Jackal–Hunt or Be Hunted
In this Peacock mini-series released November 2024, British assassin-for-hire and super-sniper is known only as the “Jackal” by police and those paying him millions. Of course, he has multiple aliases and disguises. An update of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel and the 1973 movie, Day of the Jackal is a modern high-stakes thriller of...