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‘Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again’ Review: With Original Cast & Cher On Board, Don’t Try To Resist This Musical ABBA Feastby Pete Hammond

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TV

‘Who Is America?’ Review: Sacha Baron Cohen Plays Dumb In Stupid Spoof Series

Who Is America

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When David Nevins called Sacha Baron Cohen "the premier provocateur of our time" in announcing the new Who Is America? series, the Showtime boss was certainly honest to a fault. Full of mild shock, zero awe and a lot of recycled scenarios, the flabby, seven-episode dupe-the-dimwits endeavor from the once blighting satirist certainly provokes a great inducement to change the cable channel. Or to paraphrase a true great provocateur, Johnny Rotten: Boring, Sasha… Read

Business

‘Henry IV’ Review: Tom Hanks & Hamish Linklater Give Charismatic Pulse To Shakespeare Classic

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For the average theatergoer, going to a production of a William Shakespeare play can either be an enlightening night of poetic culture or it can feel like homework. The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles’ production of Henry IV, helmed by Tony Award-winning Daniel Sullivan, lands somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, but leans towards enlightening and fun, thanks to its impressive cast of star power that is fronted by Academy Award-winning Tom Hanks, Scandal‘s Joe Morto… Read

Awardsline

Tony Awards Review: Theater Geek Culture Is Celebrated During Lively, Emotional And Politically Lite Ceremony – Except De Niro

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After last year’s Kevin Spacey-hosted Tony Awards, the annual award show honoring the best of Broadway needed a palette cleanser for obvious reasons. With Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban as hosts, they certainly reset vibe of the 72nd annual Tonys with a positive energy and humor as they let their theater geek flag fly, making the telecast a celebratory night that was heavy on love and support of the theater community — and one very blunt politically-charged moment… Read

Film

‘Hotel Artemis’ Review: Jodie Foster’s Acting Return & Impressive Cast Make Noirish Curiosity Worth Watching

Hotel Artemis

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It has been five years since Elysium, the last time Jodie Foster headlined a movie on camera, and for her return she has chosen another futuristic tale, Hotel Artemis — a rather odd duck of a project. In this dystopian crime thriller, she is considerably aged up and known only as The Nurse, a take-all-prisoners woman who for 22 years has run the Hotel Artemis, an Art Deco-looking building in 2028 Los Angeles whose penthouse serves as an emergency hospital for criminals… Read

Video

‘Ocean’s 8’ Review: Forget The Guys! Sandra Bullock & Cate Blanchett Lead Stylish Take On The Heist Franchise

Ocean's 8

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It all started in 1960 with the memorable Rat Pack Vegas heist picture Ocean’s 11, and then continued with a trio of reboots starting in 2001. Ocean’s 11, 12 and finally 13 were (mostly) male-driven con job movies masterminded by director Steven Soderbergh and producer Jerry Weintraub. When Clooney, Pitt, Damon & Co. decided to give it up in 2007 with the very entertaining Ocean’s 13 (making up for the indulgences of 12), the franchise looked to be done, especially with… Read

TV

‘Cloak & Dagger’ Review: Subdued Marvel Series Less Concerned With Superhero Flair, More Socially Aware

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SPOILER ALERT: This review includes details from the premiere episodes of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. In short, Cloak & Dagger is trippy. It’s not Legion-level trippy, but it’s perplexing astral plane time and space travel — or whatever it is that the two teenage leads do — is enough to make a worthy and woke adaptation featuring the lesser-known Marvel comic book super duo. With Marvel’s long list of TV shows, Cloak & Dagger stands out in more ways than one as a different… Read

Video

‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ Review: Masterful Mister Rogers Documentary Is Perfect Antidote For Trump Era

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

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If ever the time was right for Mister Rogers, it has to be now. Hitting once again into unexpected hidden areas of the pop culture zeitgeist, Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville delivers a touching, fascinating and perfectly timed study of the magic the legendary children's television host weaved in the simplest ways possible for generations of young people weaned on his popular PBS series, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which ran for more than 30 years — from 1968-2001… Read

Video

‘Adrift’ Review: Shailene Woodley & Sam Claflin Nicely Weather The Storm Of Romance On The Open Sea

Adrift

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It has taken 35 years for Tami Oldham's compelling survival-at-sea story to make it to the movies, but as I say in my video review (click the link above to watch), it was worth the wait. Sure we have seen similar kinds of stories like this, where one person must face the odds alone against Mother Nature, but when it is well done, as this one is, it is worth taking the voyage. At 23, Tami (Shailene Woodley) gets the opportunity to sail a yacht from Tahiti to California… Read

Business

‘The Boys In The Band’ Review: Jim Parsons, Zach Quinto Party Like It’s 1968 In Joe Mantello’s Fresh Broadway Staging

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How much baggage does The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley’s 50-year-old groundbreaker, tote onto its first-ever Broadway stage? How many memories of early Off Broadway notoriety, dismissive reappraisals and late-in-the-day charges of antiquated self-loathing? Oh Mary, don’t ask. Or actually, do. Because director Joe Mantello, a production team that includes Ryan Murphy and Scott Rudin, and a cast led by the full-of-surprises Jim Parsons as well as Zachary Quinto and Matt Bo… Read

TV

‘Pose’ Review: Ryan Murphy’s ’80s NYC Ball Scene Drama Scores 10s Across The Board

Pose

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SPOILER ALERT: This review includes details about the first four episodes of FX’s Pose. Category is: Ryan Murphy one-hour dramas based on a historic real-life counter-culture phenomenon! When it was announced that the guy who created Glee and American Horror Story was helming a show following the 1980s ball scene of New York City, red flags immediately went up as Murphy is known for Murphy-izing subject matter into a hyperreality that’s sensational, over-the-top and… Read

breakingTV

‘The Americans’ Series Finale: FX’s Cold War Drama Ends More Nyet Than Glasnost

Kari Russell Red Square Matthew Rhys

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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of tonight's The Americans series finale. The Americans will always be one of the greatest television shows ever but tonight's series finale was not one of its greatest moments. Lacking the tension that has defined the show from its 2013 debut up until tonight, hobbled with inconsistencies and stumbling with sentimentality over and over like a roadside sobriety test drunk, the Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg-penned end to the sixth… Read

Video

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Review: Han, Chewy & Lando Save The Day In Rip-Roarin’ Origin Story

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By now everyone knows of the troubled production history of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which saw its directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord replaced halfway through the shoot by veteran Ron Howard. It supposedly was due to “creative differences,” but whatever happened in bringing the origin story of Han Solo to the screen doesn’t matter much once you consider the end product. The film delivers a rip-roaring summer entertainment and perhaps the key entry in this… Read

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