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.

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Comic Book Review – Secret Avengers by Rick Remender

Secret Avengers V1-3 (2012-13)
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Patrick Zircher, Gabriel Hardman, Renato Guedes, Matteo Scalara, and Andy Kuhn

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Founded in the wake of Norman Osborn’s reign as leader HAMMER, the Secret Avengers set out to deal with rogue nations and terrorists under a veil of secrecy. Initially founded by Steve Rogers, the reins are handed over to Hawkeye with a team consisting of Valkyrie, The Beast, Black Widow, Captain Britain, the original Human Torch, and the Irredeemable Ant-Man. Their first mission has them responding to what appears to be a terrorist attack in Pakistan. Instead, they uncover a conspiracy of robots, androids, and automatons that has been brewing for decades. These Descendants, as they call themselves, are intent on getting their hands on a child born from one of their own, an anomaly in creation. A second threat comes in the form of a life model decoy of Nick Fury that runs the rogue nation of Bagalia. This sends the Avengers into a full-on war with an army of super-villains.

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TV Review -Maniac

Maniac (2018)
Written by Patrick Somerville, Caroline Williams, Nick Cuse, Mauricio Katz, Amelia Gray, Danielle Henderson, and Cary Joji Fukunaga
Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

maniac

Two people: Owen and Annie find themselves as part of a clinical drug trial for a new medication that is touted to eliminate the need for therapy. With a series of three pills, a patient will bring up their trauma, confront their guilt, and process it. There’s no need for any human interaction with the whole process taking place inside the patient’s mind. Owen believes he is a paranoid-schizophrenic, seeing a phantom version of his narcissistic older brother that tells him he’s part of some grand cosmic truth. Annie is unable to move past the death of her younger sister, killed in a way that Annie holds herself responsible for. As they travel into dreamscapes and live the lives of others, something happens that causes Owen and Annie’s created realities to merge. Meanwhile, the inventors of this drug and the supercomputer that makes it possible are dealing with a malfunction that could have significant ramifications.

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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.

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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.

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Movie Review – In the Loop

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In the Loop (2009)
Written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, & Tony Roche
Directed by Armando Iannucci

in the loop

In the UK Minister for International Development Simon Forster makes an off the cuff remark that “war is unforeseeable” when questioned during a radio interview about the Middle East. This does not mesh with the company line coming out of Downing Street and the Prime Minister’s communications head Malcolm Tucker is more than happy to ream Forster out over this. Toby is new to Forster’s staff and, to make a good impression, he gets a spot in a meeting between the UK’s foreign office and a US delegation from the state department. This leads to another verbal flub from Forster and Tucker’s eventual solution to send him to Washington D.C. on a “fact-finding” mission. Problems snowball until all parties, those for and against war end up in a race to head each other off.

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Movie Review – Woodshock

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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.

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Movie Review – Charlie Wilson’s War

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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.

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Movie Review – Menashe

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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.

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TV Review – Castle Rock Season 1

Castle Rock – Season 1 (2018)
Created by Sam Shaw & Dustin Thomason
Written by Sam Shaw, Dustin Thomason, Gina Welch, Scott Brown, Lila Byock, Vinnie Wilhelm, Marc Bernardin, and Mark Lafferty
Directed by Nicole Cassell

castle rock

Henry Deaver is returning to his childhood home of Castle Rock, Maine for the first time in decades. His mother, Ruth, has slipped further into dementia and Henry feels an obligation to arrange accommodations for her. He finds Alan Pangborn, the retired sheriff living with his mother rekindling a love affair they had behind Henry’s father’s back. The late Reverend Matthew Deaver died under mysterious circumstances when Henry was a child, with his adopted son vanishing into the woods for some days before emerging with apparent amnesia. Even as an adult, Henry cannot remember what happened to him during that missing time. Around the same time Henry returns, a discovery is made at Shawshank Prison; a young man kept caged for years by the former warden. The one thing the man says, no matter the question is “Henry Deaver.”

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