'THE BUREAU' (SUNDANCE) As I looked through the lists of Best TV Shows of the Decade that began appearing at the end of the year,…
Continue reading → Viewer's Discretion: 'The Bureau' & 'France (Les Habitants)'
Holiday Secrets (Netflix) I guess "the holidays" officially ended, but I think there is still time to slip in this three-part German series that clocks…
Continue reading → Viewer's Discretion: 'Holiday Secrets' & 'Rabbit a la Berlin'
'UNDONE' (AMAZON) Most people have a family mystery, and for some, it's one that is very close to home and defines so much of your…
Continue reading → Viewer's Discretion: 'Undone' and 'Thank You For Coming'
“VIS A VIS” (“Locked Up”) (NETFLIX) I wrote about the first two seasons of “Vis A Vis” a couple of years ago, but now Netflix…
Continue reading → Viewer's Discretion: 'Vis A Vis (Locked Up)'
‘NIGHT CRIES: A RURAL TRAGEDY’ AND ‘NICE COLOURED GIRLS’ (OVIDTV) Australian artist Tracy Moffatt is best known for her photography that relates to her own…
‘LATEST NEWS FROM THE COSMOS’ (OVIDTV) French poet Babouillec isn’t well known outside her home country — I don’t see that her works have ever been translated…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Latest News from the Cosmos’ and ‘Black Work’
‘THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM’ (AMAZON, APPLE, GOOGLE PLAY, VUDU, YOUTUBE) The most recent, as of this writing, in an apparently endless string of breakout documentaries,…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ and ‘Island’
‘HERRENS VEJE’ (‘RIDE UPON THE STORM’) (NETFLIX) Series creator Adam Price previously gave the world the infectious and intelligent show “Borgen,” which portrayed the fictional…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Herrens Veje’ and ‘First Reformed’
‘DEUTSCHLAND 83,’ ‘DEUTSCHLAND 86’ (SUNDANCE) The final years of East Germany — or, more properly, the German Democratic Republic — have proven fertile ground for German television, partially, it…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Deutschland 83,’ ‘Deutschland 86,’ and ‘Skyggenes Dal’
‘AFTER LIFE’ (NETFLIX) Appreciating the work of Ricky Gervais has always hinged on your taste, and even then, some of his efforts over the years…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘After Life’ and ‘Bathtubs Over Broadway’
“THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON” (AMAZON, APPLE, IMDBTV, GOOGLE PLAY, VUDU, YOUTUBE) Given the death last week of Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston at the…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’
‘ALENA’ (AMAZON, OVIDTV, SHUDDER) Things aren’t right in a private boarding school for girls, but when are they ever? In this Swedish film, a disadvantaged…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Alena’ and ‘Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle’
‘A VERY SECRET SERVICE’ (NETFLIX) The words “spy comedy” evoke something very specific, but this French period comedy delivers something deliciously outside of those restrictions.…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘A Very Secret Service’ and ‘Now He’s Out in Public’
‘Gentleman Jack’ (HBO) One of the reasons masculinity has done so well hanging on so long beyond any point of positive usability is that we…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Gentleman Jack’ and ‘Victor’s History’
“ Hail Satan?” (Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play) Regardless of where you fall on the spiritual or political spectrum, it’s probable that you will…
CHERNOBYL’ (HBO) It might be surprising that a mini-series dramatizing a devastating nuclear power plant accident in the Soviet Union in 1986 has met success,…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Chernobyl’ and ‘Braguino’
‘MINISTRY OF EVIL: THE TWISTED CULT OF TONY ALAMO’ (SUNDANCE) We live in a golden age of documentaries about cults and one of the unavoidable…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Ministry of Evil’ and ‘The Nightmare’
‘LEILA’ (NETFLIX) This dystopian series from India has been compared to “The Handmaid’s Tale” and though on first glance that seems fair, a closer look…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Leila’ and ‘Sarah Plays a Werewolf’
The Restaurant (Sundance) This new addition to the pantheon of dysfunctional Scandinavian family nightmares, “The Restaurant” (“Var tid ar nu, also known as “Our Time…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘The Restaurant’ and ‘Elvis: Strung Out’
‘THE ACT’ (HULU) Based on a 2015 homicide case in Missouri that saw a woman murdered by her daughter, reported as stricken with leukemia and…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘The Act’ and ‘Granny’s Dancing on the Table’
‘WOMAN AT WAR’ (APPLE, GOOGLE PLAY, YOUTUBE) Talk about unexpected achievements, “Woman At War” manages the near-impossible by offering up a feel-good movie about climate…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Woman At War’ and ‘Black Lake’
‘I AM ANOTHER YOU’ (AMAZON, APPLE, GOOGLE PLAY, VUDU, YOUTUBE) In this haunting documentary, Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang heads down to Florida after moving to…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘I Am Another You’ and ‘Rellik
‘QUICKSAND’ (NETFLIX) School mass shootings aren’t quite a daily occurrence here in the U.S., but it’s sadly gotten to a point where you could imagine…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: “Quicksand” and “Rillington Place”
‘Akta Manniskor (Real Humans)’ (Hulu) Mainly known as the inspiration for the series “Humans” rather than for any details of its own, Swedish writer Lars Lundstr…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Akta Manniskor’ and ‘A Harlot’s Progress’
’51 BIRCH STREET’ (APPLE, SUNDANCE) Thank goodness for people who like to work out their problems in public, because they have single-handedly enlivened the dysfunctional…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘51 Birch Street’ and ‘Making A Murderer’
‘MOLE MAN’ (AMAZON, SUNDANCE) Focusing on autistic 66-year-old Ron Heist, “Mole Man” presents a manifestation of compulsive creativity on a grand scale seldom witnessed. Heist…
‘BODYGUARD’ (NETFLIX) If you want tense, exciting, hard-to-predict crime conspiracy stories that keep you on the edge of your seat, British television writer Jed Mercurio…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘Bodyguard’ and ‘Nico 1988’
‘AT ETERNITY’S GATE’ (AMAZON, APPLE, GOOGLE PLAY, VUDU, YOUTUBE) It seems obvious from the moment he appears on the screen that Willem Dafoe was meant…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘At Eternity’s Gate’ and ‘Requiem’
‘LOVE & TERROR ON THE HOWLING PLAINS OF NOWHERE’ (AMAZON, APPLE, GOOGLE PLAY, SUNDANCE, VUDU, YOUTUBE) In the winter of 2006, a college professor in…
THIS IS ENGLAND ’86 (AMAZON) Imagine living in a dystopian society. If you lived in England in the 1980s, and you weren’t of a…
Continue reading → Viewer’s Discretion: ‘This is England ‘86’
