Like the prior seasons, this season's six episodes of "Black Mirror" involve at least one unwitting main character who is controlled by devices or inventions that are supposed either to enhance the quality of life or be a source of entertainment.
The anachronistic British aristocracy must sensitively negotiate its relationship with its public. “The Crown”, the November original series released from Netflix, is the story of a conflict between private and public, between the personal feelings of a wife, mother, and sister and the queen (Elizabeth II).
At its core “The Crown” is a character study and a family drama. Do you put personal fulfillment over political duty and obligation? That is the question. “The Crown” is a family saga, particularly between sisters. Conflicts with personal fulfillment and...
“Bates Motel” continues to be A&E’s number one drama of all time. I think it is a modern masterpiece!
I’ve reviewed the first three seasons earlier this year (see my June 13, 2016 review, Bates Motel, Seasons 1-3: A Mother-Son Obsession) and thought there was nowhere else to go with the plot except to the classic Hitchcock film, “Psycho”. I am so wrong. Continuing to push boundaries of what constitutes a dysfunctional, hypersexualized relationship between mother and son, in Season Four we see Norma (Vera Farming) and Norman (Freddie Highmore) play off...
In this Netflix original film, The Fundamentals of Caring, (based upon Jonathan Evison’s novel,“The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving,) takes us on a road trip with a sullen teenager, Trevor (the disingenous Craig Roberts), confined to a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy. His loving and overprotective mother– divorced and struggling with career and parental responsibilities—sequesters her son at home where he watches soap operas all day, bored out of his mind.
Along comes a writer wannabe (Paul Rudd), Ben, who is a freshly minted caregiver, desperately looking for a change in his life...
The German-Mexican co-production, “Buen Día Ramón” (“Good Day, Ramón”) tells the unusual story of a poor young Mexican immigrant named Ramon who emigrates to Germany after having incredibly bad luck in his multiple attempts to emigrate to the US illegally. Desperately in need of finding work to support his mother and provide medicine to his grandmother, he decides, on a friend’s advice, to travel to Germany.
Ramon’s remarkable openness to accept the kindness of strangers and begrudge none of his hardships is rendered believable. Struggling to survive on the street,...
This compelling and addictive police drama stars Sarah Lancashire as the middle-aged Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood, who struggles daily between remembering the suicide of her teenage daughter and developing love for the young boy her daughter left behind. Divorced and estranged from her son partly because of that tragic death, Catherine is determined to capture her daughter’s lover/killer/rapist, but the search almost spirals out of control when the perpetrator, Tommy Lee Royce (played by James Norton) is released from prison. Her pursuit of Tommy Lee Royce becomes...
