Posted on October 17, 2016 at 9:19 pm
Turner Classic Movies has another series of tributes to “Trailblazing Women” Tuesdays and Thursdays this month. It is hosted by Illeana Douglas, actress, writer, and granddaughter of two stars of Hollywood’s golden age, Melvyn Douglas and Helen Gahagan.
Her co-hosts include many of the actresses who are being honored this month, including Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Lee Grant, and Bette Midler.
Posted on October 11, 2016 at 10:51 am
One of the year’s best television series is “Speechless,” about a family with three children, one in a wheelchair. Minnie Driver stars as the fiercely protective mother, John Ross Bowie (Kripke from “Big Bang Theory”) as the more quietly supportive father, and Micah Fowler, who like the character he plays, has cerebral palsy. He also has impeccable comic timing.
And I like the way it matter-of-factly presents the way life reorders your priorities.
I like the series’ frankness about the impact that a disabled sibling can have on the other children.
Highly recommended.
Posted on October 9, 2016 at 4:21 pm
An article in The Verge discusses two television comedies about, well, death. I’m a fan of “The Good Place,” with Kristen Bell and Ted Danson in the story of a young woman who mistakenly ends up in heaven. It has some complex and thoughtful things to say about life, death, the afterlife, and the overall existential questions of purpose and meaning. One of the characters is even a former professor of ethics and philosophy. The Verge correctly calls it “conceptually ambitious.”
I am not a fan of the other show, “The Last Man on Earth,” which the Verge describes as “the high watermark of gallows humor, a release valve for our end-times anxieties.”
The end of the world scenarios are explored in dramas and comedies and mixtures of both from “The Leftovers” to “The Walking Dead” and “You, Me, and the Apocalypse.” And premiering this week, “No Tomorrow.”
What does this say about the state of the world? Are we terrified or evolving?
Posted on October 4, 2016 at 6:00 am
When tunnels dug by a group of diamond-hunting drillasaurs threaten the Flatirons, Ty and the team plan to ward them off by overseeing a diamond excavation! See how treacherous they’ll need to dig in order to get themselves out of this situation, in an all-new season of Dinotrux, on Netflix October 7, 2016.
Posted on September 21, 2016 at 3:19 pm
Three stars of “The Good Wife” will appear in a new spin-off, a midseason replacement that picks up a year after the slap that ended the popular and critically acclaimed series. According to Vulture, Christine Baranski (Diane), Sarah Steele (Marissa) and Cush Jumbo (Luca) will star in the new series.
