An original Welsh-noir murder series on Netflix (in three seasons, 13 total episodes), Hinterland is for those who love this genre. The main character, DCI Tom Mathias, is a deeply troubled unsympathetic detective who, together with his more mature and brilliant partner Mared Rhys, travels around a small hamlet in Wales solving at least one murder per episode. The dark, forboding, and gloomy landscape rivals that of the best Nordic noir raising the same question: how can there be so many murders in such a small...
The Way I See It–What’s Before Your Eyes
The Way I See It, a documentary film released by MSNBC on October 16, 2020, narrates the career of the former Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza. He covered two of the most popular US presidents of the past fifty years: Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
Only in his mid-twenties when he was invited to be the White House official photographer for Ronald Reagan, Souza admits he wasn’t a fan of Reagan’s politics but came to admire Reagan’s loving relationship with Nancy. The Way I See...
“Flesh and Blood”–Deadly Sins
Don’t be fooled. This dysfunctional family gives the appearance of happiness and love, but Flesh and Blood disguises a murder. This mystery-thriller set in the sunshine and warm beaches of West Sussex is a multigenerational psychodrama. The gentle surf and sunny skies can lull the residents into a false sense of comfort and security. Flesh and Blood immediately goes to the darkly secretive interior family drama that throws shade on the murdered. Wisely keeping the identity of the victim hidden,–although the obscured...
“Ratched”–Ratcheting Up the Tension
This Netflix quasi-horror thriller creates a backstory for Nurse Ratched, the heartless villain in the 1975 Academy-Award winning classic “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. “What made Ratched so vile and so unimaginably cruel and unempathetic?” The answer, of course, has roots in Nurse Ratched’s tragic early years, unhealed wounds that continue to fester. Ratched is a female-villain origin story.
Ratched opens in 1947 as Mildred Ratched arrives in Big Sur to seek employment...
“Van der Valk”– Going Dutch
This quirky three-episode police procedural on Masterpiece Theater follows a sullen, street-smart Dutch detective, Piet Van der Valk (Marc Warner), who navigates the seedier side of lively Amsterdam. Each two-hour episode of Van der Valk involves a distinct crime that can be watched on its own.
Solving convoluted crimes using astute human observation and inspired detection, Van der Valk is successful, in part, due to the support of Inspector Lucienne Hassell (Maimie McCoy) and rookie Officer Job Cloovers...
“Them That Follow”–Faith, Interrupted
Them That Follow (2019) is an odd American indie thriller about an Appalachian, Pentecostal, Charismatic snake-handling Christian cult. A close-knit community with extremely strong beliefs, it exists on the far-fringe of mainstream society. This is the backdrop for a love story between the Pentecostal pastor’s daughter and a boy in the community who no longer is fervent in his faith.
Mara Childs (newcomer Alice Englert) is a dutiful daughter, raised to believe that her faith unites the community in a holy...