Contagion
With the tagline: “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t touch anyone”, this B-rated movie “Contagion” (2011), directed by Stephen Soderbergh, is eerily prescient nine years later.
A pandemic–“a novel virus”– is about to create havoc, beginning with the opening scene where Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) is at the Hong Kong airport, waiting to catch a plane back to Chicago. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) will soon discover that his wife is patient zero–the original carrier of the deadly virus which begins to get...
“Little Fires Everywhere”–Incendiary at Its Best
Set in Shaker Heights, Ohio during the late 1990s, Little Fires Everywhere is based on Celeste Ng’s best-selling novel by the same name. Reese Witherspoon (Elena)and Kerry Washington (Mia) steal the show as mothers from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. This is a suburban saga with a painfully close lens focused on the income gap, class, and racial divide we know only so well. In the opening scene a house in Shaker Heights is engulfed in an inferno. Is it the target of arson? We will find out. The year is 1997.
Shaker...
“Blow the Man Down”–Maine Down Under
Premiering at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Blow the Man Down is a film debut by writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy. It opens in Easter Cove, a small parochial fishing village along the coast of Maine, in a somewhat clichéd but contemporary riff on “Murder She Wrote”.
We see a history of covering up secrets by the
small town’s residents. And we listen to
a chorus of fishermen sing “blow the man down” –referring to the
shoving of a man to the bottom of a boat, either accidentally or on purpose. ...
Last Days of Vietnam– The Best and Worst of Us
Last Days of Vietnam (2015), a PBS documentary in
the American Experience television series, is produced and directed by Rory
Kennedy, and was a 2015 Academy Award nominee for Best
Documentary Feature.
Forty-five years ago–on April 29, 1975-the US
war ceased in South Vietnam. As North Vietnamese army tanks and troops moved
into Saigon, the US ambassador fiercely resisted an evacuation. But a large number of U.S. diplomats and military operatives argued
for an orderly withdrawal. With no
congressional support, the White House ordered American...
“Ozark” (Season 3): Narcos in Missouri
Ozark has set itself apart as one of Netflix’s most popular
original series, and this season, in my humble opinion, is the best. (See my
reviews of Season 1
-September 2017) and Season
2-October 2018)
In this third season, Ozark has book-ended the journey that began with Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) inventing a plan to launder the Navarro cartel’s drug money in the Ozarks and evolves into the journey of Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney) inventing a plan to create legitimate businesses.
The Byrdes have finally broken
bad. In Season One Wendy Byrde is
primarily...
“Valhalla Murders”—The House of the Dead
Kudos to Netflix for another great Nordic noir production. In this eight-episode series, Netflix’s first Icelandic co-production, we have a crime thriller about a gruesome serial killer whose murders go back over thirty-five years. Valhalla Murders is actually based upon a series of murders that took place in Reykjavik. There is some uneven pacing, but it is over shadowed by the unexpected twists and turns of this Nordic murder mystery.
In the
opening scene the main character, Detective Kata, is severely wounded and on the verge of death. Immediately Valhalla Murders
flashes...