Month: December 2015
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Happy Valley Discoveries with Close Captions On
I watched season 1 of Happy Valley several times. I even wrote recaps of every episode. I decided to watch it all again this week with close captions on and found I had missed at least half of it. I thought my ear for a Yorkshire accent was getting pretty good, but I was wrong.
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Review: Jackie & Ryan
Jackie & Ryan is a warm-hearted romance that includes music. You can’t stay by the fire on a cold winter’s TV hiatus any better way than to watch a sweet love story with great songs in it, can you? Jackie & Ryan features Katherine Heigl as Jackie. Jackie is a pop singer who returned from…
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Review: Phoenix
Phoenix is a German film that earned over the top rave reviews from festival goers. Set in Berlin in 1944, the film stars Nina Hoss as a woman returning from a concentration camp. It’s beautifully photographed and has a very satisfying ending. Nina Hoss is wonderful in the part. I also give it high marks;…
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Dicte, Season 2 of the Danish Crime Drama
Season 2 of the Danish hit series Dicte finally made its way to American Netflix. It was a very long wait. Dicte demanded binge watching and I complied. Here’s my take on season 2. There are some spoilers ahead. Based on novels by Danish author Elsebeth Egholm, Dicte stars Iben Hjejle as Dicte Svendsen, a…
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Review: Trumbo
Trumbo is a fact-based story about Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who was blacklisted during the Communist scare of the 1940s and 50s. Bryan Cranston is brilliant as the chain-smoking, hard-drinking writer who lead other Hollywood writers in a quiet but effective revolt against blacklisting. Trumbo served time in prison for his liberal beliefs, as did…
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Reprint: A Good Year for Elder Actors
[This post originally appeared at Time Goes By, written by Ronni Bennett. Thanks to Ronni for allowing me to reprint it here.] Not infrequently, I grumble out loud around here about how few roles, especially major roles, there are in film for elder actors. Our generation doesn’t get much representation on what in our youth…
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Review: Interstellar
Interstellar is a space adventure about time, space and the power of love to cross dimensions. The main character, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a pilot who sets off on a mission he believes will save earth and his two children. Mild spoilers ahead. The film starts on a dying earth subject to massive dust storms.…
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Review: Brooklyn
Brooklyn stars Saoirse Ronan in a visually lush story about the life of an Irish immigrant in the 1950s. Ronan played Eilis, a young woman who goes to Brooklyn in search of a better life. She arrives there with a job and a place to stay. In that sense her immigrant story is easier than…
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The Old Ain’t Dead Top 10 of 2015
Old Ain’t Dead just me, watching whatever looks good. To me. I don’t watch everything. I don’t have a “best of 2015” list because I don’t have a clue as to what most of 2015 had to offer, much less what the best of all that would be. Yet here we are, at the end…
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Review: The Principal, an Australian Series
The Principal is a complex story about a mostly Muslim high school for boys in Sydney, Australia. Matt Bashir (Alex Dimitraides) is sent into the failing school as a new principal. He proposes radical changes to the way the school is run and the way the boys are treated. The faculty and staff resist those…