The appeal of period dramas like Bridgerton lies in the fascination with recreating history. While critics and fans may nitpick about which details are historically accurate, that is part of the fun for those drawn to the genre. The paradox is, that we can never really know firsthand what life was like in the palaces …
Billion Dollar Lies: Hulu’s The Dropout Depicts Elizabeth Holmes Read More »
On April 28, industry-renowned streaming platform Hulu unveiled the first two episodes of its new crime drama, Under the Banner of Heaven. Based on the true-crime nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer, the book and drama both examine the investigation of a 1984 murder in Utah. While not intentionally referential, the sum of the drama’s parts …
Under the Banner of Heaven: Hulu Unveils Atmospheric True Crime Drama Read More »
What do we know so far, and what could happen next? In the first two episodes of Better Call Saul season six, we saw a fascinating flash-forward that seemed to hint at the demise of Saul Goodman. We also saw Kim Wexler flex her devious muscles when she backed the Kettlemans into a corner. The highlight of the first two episodes was …
Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 3: Rock and Hard Place Read More »
The Beginning of the End Better Call Saul season six, episode one begins with a flashforward of what is seemingly the end for Saul Goodman, with his extravagant house emptied of all its ludicrous treasures. The tour of the Goodman mansion is ridiculously brilliant and encapsulates how over the top and “in your face” Saul Goodman is. …
Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 1 and 2 Review Read More »
When late 90s boy band LFO sang, “I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,” it was an immediately graspable shorthand for their youthful target audience. At the dawn of the millennium, social media was nascent, and youth culture was broadcast through pop music shown on MTV, glossy trade magazines like Seventeen, and what was …
Author Chesil’s debut novel “The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart” takes its title from a Japanese proverb, meaning that perception depends upon emotions. So too does history often become a matter of perception, its perspective notoriously being decided by its ‘victors’: the conquerors, rather than the conquered, the refugees, the …
Reshaping the Sky: Pachinko, Chesil, and the Korean Experience in Japan Read More »
Based on the best-selling Bridgerton book series by Julia Quinn, the hit Netflix show of the same name causes a stir with each new season. While most of the series’ characters are fictional, one of them is based on a real person. The fan-favorite Queen Charlotte is based on an actual Queen who ruled England during …
Netflix has released some unsettling true crime documentaries over the years. But their latest offering, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, is a thoroughly disturbing and chilling account of how a TV personality groomed a whole nation so he could carry out systematic abuse of children over many years. Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story Review …
Being swept away from the mundane real world to a fantastical, magical kingdom is a common trope in speculative fiction. In fact, it is a subgenre called ‘portal fantasy’. In Frank L. Baum’s Oz mythos, and the classic film derived from it, The Wizard of Oz, a tornado famously sweeps protagonist Dorothy Gale from her humble Kansas home …
The final episode of Peaky Blinders ended in a blaze of glory. There were bombs, backstabbings, and plenty of twists and turns. The production team weaved season 6 together beautifully, with director Steven Knight building the characters and the storyline leading into this gunslinging series finale. Shootouts galore and the return of a much-loved character …
