Farewell (for now) to "Somebody Somewhere," the best TV show you weren't watching

by Lynn Lee

And now a break from our regularly scheduled awards season programming for a shout-out to a small, exquisite, severely under-sung TV series that just concluded its three-season run.  The HBO dramedy Somebody Somewhere ended like it began – with no fanfare but with a lot of love, both from those who made it and from the few of us who were watching it.  For the rest of you, it may be just the show you need to shore up your faith in humanity – something that feels like it’s in short supply these days...

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Big Little Lies (2017)

by Mark Brinkerhoff

Wow. The power of women.

 I remember Nicole Kidman's speech at the 2018 Golden Globes like it was yesterday. You certainly could sense a genuine sisterhood between the five principle stars (Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz and Laura Dern) of Big Little Lies, HBO's unexpectedly titanic, initially limited series. Amid the backdrop of #MeToo, it was quite a moment for Nicole Kidman and company.

The actress's output in the 2010s was, charitably, something of a mixed bag. For every dazzling turn in Rabbit Hole (2010), The Paperboy (2012), or Paddington (2014), there were plenty of barely released (if at all) misfires like Tresspass (2011), The Railway Man (2013), and Queen of the Desert (2015). With the notable exception of Lion (2016), things looked awfully bleak for Kidmaniacs stateside heading into a post-presidential election year...

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Luca Guadagnino has dropped another project

by Cláudio Alves

Back when Luca Guadagnino first announced his plans to remake Suspiria, many were skeptical – me included. Why would we need a new take on the material when Argento's 1977 classic is such a candy-colored masterpiece? It turns out that Guadagnino was idiosyncratic enough to get away with it, proposing such a distinct vision that comparing it to the other movie feels beside the point. Hence, when the director told the world he'd helm a Scarface remake from a Coen Bros. script, the consensus was more hopeful than before. Well, that picture is officially off of Guadagnino's schedule, joining the ranks of many a dropped project…

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TV: "Succession" Course-Corrects With Third Episode of Final Season

By Christopher James

Some episodes of TV are above and beyond the show’s they’re housed in. Season four, episode three of Succession raised an already strong show to new heights. A twist early enough in the episode sets the final season in a new direction and gives Emmy-ready tapes for its crew of actors.

In full honesty, I was working on an article about Succession jumping the shark. A once dynamic series which captivated audiences and critics was just spinning its wheels tossing business jargon and curses into an incomprehensible word salad. Much of season three featured the Roy clan rehashing more of the same. However, episode three of the new season is flooring. 

SPOILERS TO IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW...

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More Thoughts on "The White Lotus: Sicily"

SPOILER ALERT:  DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE VIEWED ALL SEVEN EPISODES.

by Eric Blume 

One of the things that separates The White Lotus from many other TV programs, which are usually divided amongst several writers and directors, is that the show has a very, very specific point-of-view.  Even though other great television series (Succession, Severance, etc.) have a unified tone and the individual episodes are kept in harmony by the showrunner, it’s a different thing to have the same person actually writing and directing every episode.  Mike White views the universe and views characters comically.  He sees the world as an outsider does, with an arched eye towards human behavior, and he sees people as funny and full of contradictions.  He also lends to White Lotus a truly gay sensibility, in terms of the way he frames his actors, the way he films male and female bodies, and the way his empathy shifts between characters in a roundelay of surprising reveals, each character granted grace notes, psychology, and humanity... 

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