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Money Monster–A Wall Street Trick-or-Treat

In this 2016 sleeper directed by Jodie Foster, we see cocksure television financial guru Lee Gates (George Clooney), a television huckster hosting “Money Monster”, (similar to  “Mad Money with Jim Cramer”.) Gates specializes in helping the small-time investor by recommending stocks that are a sure winner, “better than your savings account”.  Evangelizing stocks for the amateur  looking into the action from outside,   Gates recommends Ibis Clear Capital, which inexplicably craters, losing an astronomical $800 million in one day’s trading.  A distraught...

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The Good Fight–  A Knock-out

If you loved the multiple award-winning “The Good Wife” (2009-2016) starring Julianna Margulies, you will be enthralled even more so with The Good Fight (2017-present), purportedly continuing the legal drama of “The Good Wife” as a sort of sequel or spin-off. In the first episode, “Inauguration”,  it is January 20, 2017. Chicago attorney Diane Lockhart (the riveting Christine Baranski) –the powerhouse head of the legal firm in “The Good Wife”,–is watching Donald Trump take the oath of office. In disgust, she turns off the television,  emotionally stunned by...

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Bad Sisters—Saving Grace

In this Apple+ Irish comedic mini-series, we see four of the five Garvey sisters—Eva (Sharon Hogan who is also the creator and producer), Ursula (Eva Birthistle of “Last Kingdom”), Bibi (Sarah Greene) and Becka (Eve Hewson of “Behind Her Eyes”)—in the difficult position of wanting to save their sister Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) from her emotionally abusive and pathologically  narcissistic husband,  John Paul (Claes Bang).  Each of them attempts to murder him…unsuccessfully.  Bad Sisters, in fact, opens with John Paul’s death. We know he dies, but we don’t know who killed...

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My Sister’s Keeper—Who Gets to Live?

My Sister’s Keeper,  a 2009 film based on the Jodi Picoult novel of the same name, and directed by Nick Cassavetes, is a  family saga. The film explores the harrowing decision involving a minor’s forced organ donation and the right to medical emancipation.  My Sister’s Keeper is the painful “Sophie’s Choice” of asking to choose just one of your treasured children’s lives.  What is a parent willing to do to save the life of a child with a bleak, painful future, and imminent death around the corner? What about conceiving in vitro  a “designer child” with...

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The Kite Runner– Broadway Version

The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini is a deeply moving, sometimes horrific story of two childhood friends–one a servant, the other the privileged son of the master of the house.  Taking place in Kabul, Afghanistan during the 1980’s, The Kite Runner tackles the themes of class, ethnic division, and the price of friendship.  The wealthy   friend must face up to what he witnesses one day and what betrayal he is guilty of.  For both boys–now adults–the event rips apart their friendship and their lives. This Broadway version of The Kite Runner features...

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Five Days at Memorial—No Emergency Exit

Five Days at Memorial is an Apple TV+ eight-episode miniseries that premiered on August 22 of this year.  Based on the multiple-award winning 2013 book by journalist Sheri Fink,  this series revisits the  tragic and hellish events  that occurred at Memorial Medical Center over five days:   August 28 – September 1, 2005—during Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Louisiana. As floodwaters begin threatening the lower hospital floors at Memorial Medical, electricity is cut off and  backup generators fail, temperatures soar to over 100 degrees and food...

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