This masterful series, breathtaking in all four seasons, has now come to an end. Season 4 Part 2 of Ozark debuted April 29, delivering the conclusion to the Byrde family saga.
Ozark is exhausting, brimming with betrayal, murder, money-laundering, and more murder, and brutal family dynamics. What’s the meaning of it...
“The Dressmaker”–Quirky Down-Under Drama
Based upon Rosalie Ham’s novel by the same name, The Dressmaker (2015) gives us an opening scene in which 10-year-old Tilly Dunnage is being bullied by classmate Stewart Pettyman, the mayor’s son, and a group of boys in Dungatar, a town in the Australian outback. With little investigation she is sent...
My Top 30 Movies and TV Series for 2021
While we all continue to shelter-in-place during this lockdown, many of us craved new content to watch, some less well-known and under-the-radar. Well, this year I watched more movies and television than ever before, so I have thirty to recommend, instead of the usual 15-20.
Here are the reviews I wrote this past year...
“Dopesick” (2021)–Lies Upon Lies
Based on journalist Beth Macy’s book Dopesick, this Hulu eight-episode miniseries focuses on the early epicenter of the US’s struggle with the opioid addiction. Purdue Pharma, the Sackler mega-company that manufactured the deadly painkiller OxyContin, is the catalyst for an epic tragedy involving the duplicitous collusion...
“Squid Game”–Hunger Games Meets Snowpiercer: Gangnam Style
This #1 Netflix mega-hit, streaming in nine episodes, is a Korean dystopian story of survival. A mastermind known as the Front Man, in a mask like Darth Vader, stages a series of deadly childhood games (tug of war, red-light-green-light, and the Korean-specific squid game). The debt-ridden players, trapped on a...
“Sandra Day O’Connor–The First”
For almost 200 years, the United States Supreme Court was a male bastion. In PBS’s American Experience: “Sandra Day O’Connor: The First” we see Sandra Day O’Connor become the first woman Supreme Court Justice. She is remembered for being the critical swing vote on cases involving this country’s most...