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...
“The Morning Show”–Wake Up America
The Morning Show, an award-winning AppleTV+ mini-series, is inspired by Brian Stelter’s book about Matt Lauer and the Today Show. Dominant themes and subplots focus on the vile, abject humiliation involved in corporate politics, gender roles, and sexual predation.
In the opening scene, co-anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) has just...


