The Apocalypse is Coming in New 'Umbrella Academy' Trailer

Everything I see for this show makes it look pretty cool- I like the humor, the style, the tone. The talking ape even looks good here, from that brief glimpse we see of him. It comes out in three weeks- February 15th.

REVIEW: "Brexit"

In 2016, the Brits had their own electoral disaster before we did, remember? It happened just months before the catastrophe that struck the U.S. and it was called Brexit. The UK is still reeling from the impact and as of this moment, headed toward a potential calamity as the exit from the EU date rapidly approaches with no deal in place. But it all started when former Prime Minister David Cameron decided to hold a referendum on Britain exiting the European Union nearly three years ago, after just barely winning the other ill-advised referendum that would have seen Scotland leaving the U.K.

Perhaps loaded with hubris after that victory, or for whatever other reason, Cameron called the referendum vote and this new Channel 4/HBO movie is about the campaign that followed. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Dominic Cummings, the former strategist on the outs with the Tories, who’s hired by a lobbyist to head the “Leave” campaign, and who employed new data firms that were eager to test their technology to locate and target potential new voters through social media. A lot of this was backed by the shady American billionaire Robert Mercer (Trump’s biggest donor) and the even shadier consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which was retroactively discovered to have infiltrated the Leave campaign and conspired to break Britain’s electoral laws in the lead-up to the vote. The movie, written by James Graham and directed by Toby Haynes, is a fast-paced, entertaining look at the behind the scenes of how Cummings worked the new means of voter targeting and spearheaded the new politics comprised of stirring up anger, racism and fear in the people, a strategy that worked alarmingly well in turning voters out. 

Politicians irresponsibly fan the flames of hatred

You can hear echoes in the familiar arguments being had with our cousins across the pond in focus group sessions that turn nasty as voters scream at each other and white people freak out at being called racist, even though the biggest driver of this “economic anxiety” (sound familiar?) is fear of immigrants crossing into the UK, particularly 70 million people from Turkey, a complete lie that complements other lies that are thrown on the sides of buses in ads that reach millions of voters. The arguments for and against staying in the EU aren’t breached in detail, but it’s clear that the Remain campaign was lying down on the job, completely taken off guard by the hostility stirred up in an electorate made up of a lot of angry and unsatisfied citizens (and others who didn’t bother to vote at all- another massive oversight on the part of the government to sound the alarm). As an American, I couldn’t get into the details of why the EU coalition is so important, but the movie makes it clear that the biggest driver of dissatisfaction is not so different from what drove the Trump voters over here, as a Labour Party MP was murdered in her own district by a racist with ties to a U.S. based Neo-Nazi group a week before the referendum. The movie also shows the indifference of spotlight hogging politicians like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson who didn’t hesitate to act as agitators with no regard for the consequences, as both fled from responsibility in dealing with the aftermath.

There’s something about Cumberbatch that makes him excel at playing smug, superior geniuses who lord their abilities over everyone around them, so casting him as this guy who’s simply out to “shake things up” was the obvious and perfect choice. He carries the film effortlessly as we’re taken on the unpleasant ride that was the Brexit campaign, but as watchable as the film is, you can’t help but feel the sense of doom as no one knows even now know how this story plays out, something we’re told specifically in the ending title cards. Was it too soon to make a movie about this, given the unknowable conclusion? Perhaps. But for anyone who wants to know more about what exactly happened over there, this is a good start. I’m sure there will be more to come.

Grade: B+

Rory Kinnear plays the incompetent strategist for the government who’s caught off guard by the discontent

REVIEW: "Sex Education" Season 1

As a longtime fan of John Hughes teen movies, a show that’s nearly set up entirely to be a sort of homage to those films would seem to be right up my alley. And for the most part, Sex Education, a funny, candid, teen comedy about sex (very un-sexy sex, in the spirit of most teenage encounters), is pretty much that, but at other times it threatens to bury itself under the strain of too many cliches and familiar tropes of the genre. There’s a point where it becomes less homage and just plain unoriginal.

Which is too bad, because the majority of it does feel fresh and original, as do most of the characters. It’s the home stretch where things go awry. Set in the fictional country town of Moordale in England, Asa Butterfield (quite appealing in this, in a young John Cusack kind of way) is Otis, a sexually repressed 16-year-old who can’t masturbate due to phobias brought about by his mother (a hilariously entertaining Gillian Anderson) being a sex therapist whose casual frankness about all things sex-related has made him, shall we say…uncomfortable. But also due to his upbringing, he’s openminded, progressive and highly knowledgable on the subject, which makes him the perfect candidate to start a sex clinic at school with his crush Maeve Wiley (Margot Robbie lookalike Emma Mackey), the cool girl with the bad reputation. 

Unlikely bathtub therapy

This is an implausible premise, I’ll grant you, but the show is an outright comedy, and the setup leads to all kinds of sex questions, lessons, and smutty storylines as the teens pile up to spill their guts to the befuddled yet sweet Otis, as he pines for Maeve and longs for normalcy. The back and forth with him and Maeve is the old, will-they-won’t-they, nice boy meets girl from wrong-side-of-the-tracks romance, with plenty of phony love interests thrown in along the way for obstacle’s sake (don’t be with Jackson, Maeve! He’s the wrong guy for you!). I can’t help it if I’m a bit over this by now. In fact, I don’t mind saying that love triangles have become a borderline evil plot point for me- if you don’t get your couple together in the first six episodes, there’s a real good chance I’m walking away.

So yes, there is no chance that you won’t see where that is going, but thankfully, there are other characters to amuse and delight, especially Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) as Otis’s gay best friend, a funny and adorable friendship that carries the show as much as anything, Adam (Connor Swindells), the school bully and headmaster’s son whose story turns out far more intriguing than any of the love triangle crap, and Lily, a desperate to have sex, writer of erotic alien fiction, nicely played by a deadpan Tanya Reynolds. Here’s another word of warning about this show- the cringe comedy is very cringe, with some of the most awkward, embarrassing moments I’ve had to sit through since the original BBC version of The Office. Hats off to the young ensemble for pulling it off, as well as to the producers for casting the most racially and sexually diverse high school I’ve ever seen on television (or film come to think of it). I’m not sure that this show will appeal to everyone, as the frank sex comedy combined with the earnest John Hughes tribute of it all (and I do mean that- it’s even scored with an entirely 80’s soundtrack despite being set in present day) makes for a different kind of tone, but by the end of the season, the way certain storylines wrap, every familiar beat of teen comedies and romantic comedies will play out exactly as you expect them to, which is a bit of a disappointment. But overall, there’s enough here to recommend and the actors are so appealing that a second season would be welcomed by me with gusto.

Grade: B+

Typical will they/won’t they romance on an atypical show

Kimmy and Titus Return for the Final Episodes of 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'

I didn’t write a review for Season 4 of Kimmy Schmidt because I wanted to wait for the final episodes to drop. They chose to split the season in half, with the first six coming out last spring and now finally, the last bunch are here on January 25th. Not sure exactly why they chose to do it this way, but for what it’s worth the first six episodes were pretty great, and I hope the final ones live up to that so the show can go out on a high note. To me it’s always been one of the funniest, probably most underrated comedies around.

'The Americans' and 'Mrs. Maisel' Win Series Awards at Critics Choice

Some good winners on the TV side of the Critics Choice Awards tonight, even if most of them weren’t allowed to take the stage (seriously, guys- if you’re gonna do this, just separate the film and television ceremonies). Matthew Rhys and Noah Emmerich (!) won for The Americans, along with the show itself, while Maisel continues to steamroll the comedy categories (and I continue to have no opinion on that, since I do not and will not watch it).

• BEST DRAMA SERIES: “The Americans”

• BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Matthew Rhys – “The Americans”

• BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Sandra Oh – “Killing Eve”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Noah Emmerich – “The Americans”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Thandie Newton – “Westworld”

• BEST COMEDY SERIES: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

• BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Bill Hader – “Barry”

• BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Rachel Brosnahan – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Henry Winkler – “Barry”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Alex Borstein – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

• BEST LIMITED SERIES: “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”

• BEST MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION: “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert”

• BEST ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Darren Criss – “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”

• BEST ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE – TIE: Amy Adams – “Sharp Objects” & Patricia Arquette – “Escape at Dannemora”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Ben Whishaw – “A Very English Scandal”

• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Patricia Clarkson – “Sharp Objects”

• BEST ANIMATED SERIES: “BoJack Horseman”

The Americans goes out on top, with a mini-winning streak at the Globes and Critics Choice awards, but Matthew and Keri didn’t show up to this one :(

The Alvarez Family is Back in 'One Day at a Time' Season 3

Yay! Netflix’s One Day at a Time is back for its third season on February 8th. Justina Machado and Rita Moreno lead the ensemble on this show, which is a delightfully cheery, feel-good, unapologetically progressive sitcom about a working class Latino family in California. I wish it got more attention, because it really is deserving of the acclaim, especially when these kinds of sitcoms are mostly lame, outdated CBS stuff. This one is kind of a perfect, responsive antidote to the era we’re living in.

REVIEW: "Surviving R. Kelly"

The strength of the #MeToo movement has brought about a resurgence in trying to bring predators to justice, but many have escaped its grasp for years. In the case of R. Kelly, it’s been decades. This new documentary series produced by Lifetime, from filmmaker and cultural critic Dream Hampton, attempts to redirect our newly found outrage on behalf of black women and girls, and towards one of the powerful men who’s been hiding in plain sight since the early 1990’s.

The six-part series chronicles R&B artist and producer R. Kelly’s childhood, in which he is portrayed though his own words and those of his younger brother, to have been a victim of sexual abuse himself, who then grew up to become an abuser, as he began preying on teenage girls from his own former high school as early as his twenties. After finding success in the music industry in Chicago, he quickly used his status as a powerful artist with a posse of assistants and managers around him to recruit young girls who wanted to break into the industry, gain their trust and solicit sexual favors from them, turning them subservient to him. Like most predators, he preyed on the weak, girls from underprivileged families, and groomed them to become submissive to him as he showered them with attention, gifts, material riches and promises of big futures.

The documentary employs interviews with Kelly’s family members, former assistants and managers, revealing just how openly he indulged in his abusive and predatory lifestyle, with a cadre of men surrounding him who enabled and facilitated this behavior, assisting in the recruitment of girls as young as 12, from as far back as the early 90’s. Like others of his ilk (Michael Jackson comes to mind) many incidents played out in plain sight, such as his 1994 marriage to his 15-year-old protege Aaliyah, when he was 27, to the infamous “pee tape” of him urinating on a 14-year-old that found its way onto the internet and became a massive scandal in 2002. Throughout the scandals, R. Kelly produced hits that made him more or less untouchable in the industry, allowing the larger public to brush aside his behavior, as the black community remained somewhat polarized, always an issue when celebrity and wealth is involved, as we know.

Lizette Martinez, a survivor who met Kelly as a 16 year old

The series focuses on the victims, interviewing multiple survivors of Kelly’s, who have now come forward to tell their stories, which range from child molestation over decades to the more recent revelations that he ran a sex cult out of his Atlanta mansion where women were locked up in rooms, used as sex slaves, beaten, and starved among other tortures. The horrific details of this behavior are explained to devastating effect in title cards that reveal how and at what age each woman met R. Kelly and show that he was recruiting teenagers during his 2008 trial for child pornography regarding the infamous video, on which he was acquitted of all charges. Artists continued to work with him throughout the scandals, as the industry supported him or at best ignored the damning allegations and settlements over the years, and the series challenges his continued acceptance in the black community, as the devaluation of black women and girls becomes a primary concern. One wonders whether Kelly would have been acquitted if video evidence showed him abusing underage white teenagers, as one juror is interviewed and freely admits to not believing the victims because he didn’t like the way they “looked.” Even Chance the Rapper, one of the few artists to agree to be interviewed for the series (John Legend is another), admits on camera that he didn’t value the accuser’s stories because they were black women.

This documentary is highly emotional advocacy journalism at its core, employing reality show tactics in some of the later episodes as producers follow the parents of current victims still in R. Kelly’s circle, as he cuts them off from all family members and the outside world, brainwashing them to become entirely dependent on him (one survivor details his harrowing confession that some of the women have been with him for up to 15 years, including the girl in the video, who never came forward to accuse him publicly). Several parents are still attempting to get their daughters back, as his post-trial tactic was to recruit vulnerable women of legal age or just below, so that when they came of age he could snap them away from their families and no legal action could be taken. Reality show producing tactics aside, it is the women’s stories that are most important to reveal, and the plea for action taken against the man who has escaped justice for his crimes can still be heard by the public (some investigations in Atlanta and Chicago have already been spurred again in response to the outcry). Turning the focus of the #MeToo movement (whose founder Tarana Burke is prominently featured here) back on the stories of black women and girls is an important cause to be spotlighted, and attempts to gain justice once more over longtime predators (and in the music industry overall, which has not made as much of an effort to purge itself of its criminals) make this a worthy and important series that wants to make a real world impact and challenge a new generation (as well as the old) to become aware of the kind of man R. Kelly is and not let him off the hook this time. I think it succeeded in its aims. 

Grade: A-

Azriel Clary, a teenage victim still in his grasp today

Frank Castle Battles Jigsaw in New 'Punisher' Trailer

The full trailer for the second (and likely final) season of The Punisher dropped today and it actually looks pretty good. Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle is back and doing his best punishing, looks like in order to protect a young girl played by Georgia Whigham. Ben Barnes is back as Jigsaw, the villain created in the bloody finale last season, and Amber Rose Revah as Agent Madani. Surprisingly, I guess that was it for Micro, who I figured was still going to be his sidekick, but he’s nowhere in sight in this trailer and apparently isn’t on the cast list for this season either. I do hear that Deborah Ann Woll will be back as Karen Page, so hopefully there’s some kind of closure to that storyline between them. The season is out on January 18th.

Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams in First Teaser for 'Fosse/Verdon'

Oooh, I bet this is gonna be good. A new, eight-part miniseries based on the book Fosse, is set to chronicle the relationship and partnership between Bob Fosse and his longtime partner and ex-wife, Broadway star Gwen Verdon, one of the great theater collaborations of all time. This might be something that only appeals to theater junkies who actually know these names (though for those who are unaware- Bob Fosse is the legendary choreographer and director responsible for many, many musicals, and whose movies include Cabaret and All That Jazz, so look him up), but the story is good enough to grab anyone and with these actors there’s already a lot of hype. It premieres in April on FX.

'The Kominsky Method,' 'Gianni Versace' and 'The Americans' Win Series Awards at the Golden Globes

Well, I’m just surprised I got any of these right, but looks like my wild guess for The Kominsky Method paid off. Also got Sandra Oh and Richard Madden correct. I should have known The Americans had a chance in series, remembering that Breaking Bad also only won here for its last season (I don’t think the HFPA really liked either of these shows much, but felt they ought to give in to the critical praise when the shows finally ended). As for the ceremony itself this year, Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg were pretty much bad all the way through it, sorry. I still don’t think the Globes need a host. Maybe none of these shows do, maybe we’re in post-awards show host era. What do you think?

• DRAMA SERIES: The Americans

• DRAMA ACTOR: Richard Madden, Bodyguard

• DRAMA ACTRESS: Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

• LIMITED SERIES/TV MOVIE: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

• LIMITED SERIES/TV MOVIE ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora

• LIMITED SERIES/TV MOVIE ACTOR: Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace

• COMEDY SERIES: The Kominsky Method

• COMEDY ACTOR: Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method

• COMEDY ACTRESS: Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal

• SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects

Got this one right! The Hollywood Foreign Press fell hard for the Bodyguard hunk