Oh So Geeky

With Christmas right around the corner, Harper (Mackenzie Davis) hopes to treat her longtime girlfriend Abby (Kristen Stewart) to a special weekend getaway with her family. There’s just one problem: Harper hasn’t come out to her parents yet. To save face until she’s comfortable enough to own her sexuality, Abby goes along with pretending to be a straight roommate while hoping to seek her family's acceptance to eventually propose. Tis the season to be jolly and gay. At least, that’s what Happiness Season would like a lot of us to believe. Marketed as a holiday movie for the gays (and straights) – yay! – it’s hard to believe how much nuance is packed into the first major studio backed lesbian holiday flick – another yay! – and yet makes a total ba-humbug mess of this coming out tale.  (This review contains spoilers)

Rory O’Hara (Jude Law) has everything going for him – healthy and happy kids Samantha and Benjamin (Oona Roche and Charlie Shotwell, respectively), and a wife Allison (Carrie Coon) who challenges him. Their life seems like paradise from the outside looking in, but an endless nagging of unfulfilled potential convinces Rory otherwise. Despite the challenges of uprooting his family across the world to start over, he takes a chance on a job opportunity in the United Kingdom even though it could potentially cost him the peaceful life they already have.

Since the Coronavirus lockdown started earlier this year, there's been more time to watch new television shows and revisit some of my older faves. I didn't think there would be so much time to watch as many series as I have so far, or that we'd be eight months later since March still trying to get control of the Coronavirus fall-out.  Below are my quick (mostly disappointed) reviews of shows I watched over the summer. Spoilers are included for   The Office,  Ratched,  The Boys,  Lovecraft Country, and Watchmen.

Based on the novel by Bonnie Jo Campbell, 15 year old Margo Crane (Kenadi DelaCerna) lives on the Stark River bank with her father Bernard (Tatanka Means). After she endures a family scandal that leaves her ostracized from the community and other relatives, she goes in search of her mother who left a year earlier. As she winds down the river, she encounters strangers who help her heal and start over. As Once Upon A River is told from Crane’s perspective, the film primarily belongs to Kenadi DelaCerna. She occupies almost every frame from beginning to end, which is a tall order for an actress making her screen debut. Crane is a quiet and thoughtful heroine who internalizes her experiences, leading most of DelaCerna’s performance to rest in subtle expressions, and to do so without losing your attention of what she is thinking and feeling. DelaCerna possesses a mature presence that brings Crane to life. A solid round of supporting actors also strengthens DelaCerna’s presence on-screen f...

Inspired by true stories Vera Atkins (Stana Katic) helps lead Winston Churchill’s new secret army of spies known as the Special Operations Executive. Two of her newest recruits – Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas) and Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte) become the first “lady spies” of a resistance network in German-occupied France as Hitler poises to cross the English channel.  History has a way of repeating itself in Hollywood. When the same old stories are told, we’re stuck believing that the same people save or revolutionize the world over and over again. As female filmmakers look more between the lines of the past and its forgotten trailblazers, we begin to see just how much entertainment has scratched the surface. In a recent bout of solid female-driven World War II films, A Call To Spy continues to turn the tide of how cinema defines the “the greatest generation.”

photo by Neil Krug Very few stars in Hollywood shine so brightly. After a handful of roles under his belt, Chadwick Boseman accomplished more in his massive skyrocket to fame than many are ever able to. It's only fitting that Esquire once declared , "Chadwick is telling America's greatest stories." But how these stories were told is just as illuminating and important as Chadwick being the chosen one to tell them.

History's made up of pioneers who have transformed the world as we know it. Too many remain overlooked, forgotten to time and standards or traditions that now seem archaic today. And, movies often a way to shine a light on those whose stories are recognized by their peers and admirers. Engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla, who continuously mounts a resurgence in film and television, finally gets the biopic treatment, but it's difficult to discern if it isn't as garbled as his own legacy. Outside of his own inventions, the Serbian-American scientist Tesla (Ethan Hawke) is perhaps most recognized for his feud against his former boss and American inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan). Here, the film loosely explores Tesla's life from the 1893 World’s Fair and onwards, marking the differences in their career and their war on electrical currents - Tesla's alternating current sytem vs Edison's direct current electric power. Director Michael Almereyda doesn't ge...