Academy Award winner Anna Paquin stars in Flack, a British dramedy about high-powered publicists. Her boundary-busting character Robyn is asked why she does what she does. “I enjoy it,” she says. “Makes the most of my natural talents … lying and drinking.” Two six-episode seasons, both shot in London pre-COVID, were produced. Paquin and husband
Martin Luther King Day in America seems like an apt time to review “One Night in Miami.” Based on a play by Kemp Powers (who also wrote this screenplay), the Amazon Prime Video feature fictionalizes an actual meeting between icons Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Sam Cook. The four gathered in a simple
Friday, Disney+ tosses decades of sitcoms into a sci-fi blender with WandaVision. The big budget series brings Disney and Marvel heft to the blend, and the results, after three episodes screened, are intriguing. The six-episode first season stars Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of Full House sitcom toddlers Kate and Ashley Olsen) and English actor Paul
Yes, we’re still in lockdown; in some places, more locked down then ever. While you’re waiting to get vaccinated, here are five recent shows to search, binge and enjoy: Death to 2020 (Netflix). The folks behind the British mockumentary Black Mirror created this deadpan, cynical, wickedly funny look at the year from Hell. Brilliantly written
There’s an old story that goes like this. At the start of every season, a famous theatre critic always gives the first play he sees a favourable review. Asked about it, he declares, “Who am I to stone the first cast?” Which brings us to Call Me Kat, my first review of 2021. The sitcom,
While it was a bad year for most everything else, 2020 was a great year for documentaries premiering on television, especially profiles of rock ‘n’ roll bands from the ’60s and ’70s. Here, in no particular order, are my nine favourites, in some cases with links to my earlier reviews: Laurel Canyon: A Place in
Television has long been a borderless business. This is true when it comes to producing big budget dramas. Recent efforts such as the recent War of the Worlds miniseries, Vikings and, going further back, The Borgias and even The Indian Detective, required financial contributions from two or more countries in order to realize storytelling on
In 1975 I had a summer job as a linepiler at a Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Etobicoke. It is burned in my memory that the Bee Gees had an enormous hit with “Jive Talkin’” that summer. As those large, heavy boxes filled with rolls of 2- and even 3-ply toliet paper came chugging down the line,