Category: drama

PopCult Watches: Flowers Season 1, Episode 1

flowers

Flowers Season 1, Episode 1 (2016)
Written & Directed by Will Sharpe

flowers 01

Maurice Flowers is a depressed children’s author living in a quaint country cottage with his family. A few months ago, after his depression began, Maurice entered into an open relationship with his wife, Deborah. Deborah is awkwardly attempting to extend herself and explore this option given to her but is feigning enthusiasm. Their twins, Donald and Amy, are overly ambitious grown children who bicker constantly and are sunk into their obsessions of craft (inventing and music, respectively) but share a mutual love for their neighbor Abigail. Rounding out the Flowers household are Maurice’s aged mother and Shun, a young Japanese artist who illustrates Maurice’s books.

Continue reading “PopCult Watches: Flowers Season 1, Episode 1”

Movie Review – I Think We’re Alone Now

I Think We’re Alone Now (2018)
Written by Mike Makowsky
Directed by Reed Morano

i think were alone now

When everyone died, Del was finally relieved. He no longer had to live his life as a recluse shuffling between his home and the public library where he worked. This town on the Hudson River was now his, and he spent his days scavenging one block after another, burying the dead and collecting supplies to live out the remainder of his life. Into this seeming apocalyptic tranquility burst Grace, a young woman brings noise and chaos into Del’s ordered existence. She claims to be the last of her family, wandering the highways and living without rules because there’s no one there to enforce them any longer. Tension builds and builds between these two as Del is unwilling to compromise his life and patterns for this interloper. However, Grace holds a very dark secret that will compel Del to face a crisis of conscience.

Continue reading “Movie Review – I Think We’re Alone Now”

TV Review – Barry Season 1

Barry Season 1 (2018)
Written by Alec Berg, Bill Hader, Duffy Boudreau, Sarah Solemani, Ben Smith, Emily Heller, and Liz Sarnoff
Directed by Bill Hader, Maggie Carey, Hiro Murai, and Alec Berg

barry tv series

Barry Berkman lives a lonely, sad life. He spends his time alone and only goes out when his handler, Fuches gives him a call. Barry is a former marine who has become an assassin for hire, traveling around the country and killing members of organized crime cartels. Barry’s latest venture has him holed up in Los Angeles to perform a hit for the Chechen mob. During his off time, the hitman wanders into an acting class and falls in love. Suddenly, Barry is working to be an actor, hiding this fact from Fuches and trying to balance his assassin work with his stage practice. A romance develops between Barry and a fellow student who creates even more trouble for the conflicted.

Continue reading “TV Review – Barry Season 1”

Movie Review – Madeline’s Madeline

Madeline’s Madeline (2018)
Written by Josephine Decker, Donna di Novelli, Gail Segal, Sharon Mashihi, and Alexandra Tatarsky
Directed by Josephine Decker

madeline's madeline

Madeline is a 16-year-old girl living in New York City with her single mom and brother. Her only passion appears to be working with a physical theater troupe. The director, Evangeline notices that Madeline has an intense inner world and works to pull that out. As she discovers Madeline’s conflicts with her mother, Evangeline decides to base the troupe’s new production around the material the young girl provides them. This in-depth examination of Madeline’s issues begins to have an adverse effect while the theater director seems to ignore the worst aspects. As Madeline’s grip on reality and fantasy slips, she spirals back into behaviors that sent her to a psychiatric ward years earlier.

Continue reading “Movie Review – Madeline’s Madeline”

Movie Review – Woodshock

a24 visions

Woodshock (2017)
Written & Directed by Laura & Kate Mulleavy

woodshock

Theresa is a troubled woman who is grieving the recent death of her terminally ill mother. She spends most of her days wandering around the small home in Northern California she has inherited. Her lumberjack boyfriend Nick pressures her to sell the place so they can leave and start over somewhere else, but Theresa just can’t. When she finally returns to her job working in a marijuana dispensary alongside her friend Keith, he notices she is withdrawn and unwillingly to start living again. A series of tragic circumstances lead to another death in Theresa’s life which finally pushes her to a breaking point. Through a hallucinatory exodus, she will come to a final realization about her life and relationships.

Continue reading “Movie Review – Woodshock”

Movie Review – Charlie Wilson’s War

rwbcinema

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by Mike Nichols

charlie wilson

In 1980, Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson of Texas was known as a hard-drinking, hard-partying, womanizing member of the House Appropriations Committee. Wilson was a man quite deft at securing favors from his fellow congressmen and infamous for his office staff of “angels,” young and fit women that ran his day to day operations. Despite a mind very focused on the material and carnal, Wilson was deeply moved by the footage he saw of Afghan refugees. A fact-finding mission to Pakistan found him walking among a camp comprised of a one-fifth of the Afghan population that had fled in the wake of the Soviet invasion. Wilson, pushed by Texan socialite Joanne Herring and CIA agent Gust Avrakotos, was one of the figures responsible for getting weapons into the hands of the Afghan freedom fighters who ultimately repelled the Soviets.

Continue reading “Movie Review – Charlie Wilson’s War”

Movie Review – Menashe

a24 visions

Menashe (2017)
Written by Alex Lipschultz, Musa Syeed, & Joshua Z Weinstein
Directed by Joshua Z. Weinstein

menashe

Menashe is a widowed Hasidic man whose young son is living with Menashe’s in-laws until the man can remarry. He works a dead-end job at a grocery store with a manager who cuts him no slack. Menashe was never delighted with his arranged marriage, though he misses his wife and loves his son. He attempts to take his son back, but this unravels into a conflict with his brother in law Eizik. Their rabbi decides that Menashe will keep the boy for the week leading up to his late wife’s one-year memorial. Menashe struggles with being the father his community doubts he can be and maintaining his sense of individuality within his tight-knit cultural group. Every day feels like a loss of his self to make others around him happy.

Continue reading “Movie Review – Menashe”

Movie Review – A Ghost Story

a24 visions

A Ghost Story (2017)
Written & Directed by David Lowrey

a ghost story

A man and woman live in a small house in rural Texas. There is an ongoing argument about whether they should move to a place with more opportunities or stay in this place. The woman wants to leave. The man wants to stay. Then he dies, his car t-boned by another vehicle. After she visits the hospital morgue and goes in tears, the man rises, still covered in the sheet and wanders back home. This is when he begins to haunt that small house. Time slows to a crawl; then it passes in torrents. The man eventually comes to see his time in this home from a new perspective and comes to a very final conclusion about not just his life, but all of ours.

Continue reading “Movie Review – A Ghost Story”

Movie Review – The Exception

a24 visions

The Exception (2017)
Written by Simon Burke
Directed by David Leveaux

the exception

Captain Stefan Brandt, a member of Hitler’s Third Reich, is assigned to protect the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II at his country home in the Netherlands. Once there he finds a former monarch who is hesitant to throw his support behind the Fuhrer. The Gestapo shows up to check out a rumored English spy among the villagers, and Brandt seems rather uninterested in this side hunt. Instead, he becomes enamored with Mieke, a young maid in the Kaiser’s staff. Things suddenly become even more complicated when word comes that SS Commander Heinrich Himmler is coming to secure the Kaiser’s loyalty. Brandt finds himself torn between his duty to Germany, his admiration of the Kaiser, and his love for Mieke.

Continue reading “Movie Review – The Exception”

Movie Review – The Contender

rwbcinema

The Contender (2000)
Written & Directed by Rod Lurie

the contender

Senator Laine Hanson has been nominated as the new vice president in the wake of the previous office holder’s death. Like all presidential nominees, the Legislature exercises its advise and consent policy with hearings. Congressman Sheldon Runyon, chair of the House Judiciary, has made it his mission to take down Hanson publicly for a multitude of reasons. She is, after all, a Democrat to his Republican, but made even worse is that she is a former Republican who switched parties mid-stream. Her beliefs in upholding a woman’s right to choose was a catalyst for her political conversion, and now Runyon wants her to suffer. He enters into a deal with members of both parties in Congress, as well as a runner-up for the nomination, with plans to humiliate Senator Hanson with a scandalous revelation from her past.

Continue reading “Movie Review – The Contender”