The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks awkwardly and cumbersomely arrives at its revelations.
It’s too regimented in its storytelling to conjure any real insight into the privileged world in which it’s embedded.
The new HBO series Divorce has a clear barometer for humor, though less for empathy.
Above all else, Marvel’s Luke Cage is about what, if any, qualifications there are for being a hero.
Too much of the Netflix series feels dictated by the setup and pay-off rules of popular storytelling.
At the heart of Vice Principals is the mad desire to find respect, power, and likability.
There’s a simple magnetism inherent in this kind of filmmaking, and the Coens know how to orchestrate it.
The series remains compelling in its devotion to exposing its characters’ public hang-ups and private strengths.
Uncle Buck bears the unmistakable feeling of a series that was market-tested to death in every predictable plot turn.
The series ultimately becomes nothing much more than a paean to the myth of the wild, ingenious badass chef.
The Dresser is a merely effective portrait of the pitfalls and pleasures of a working relationship.
The dialogue is at once easygoing in its candor and rigidly on-message about the corrosive nature of lies.
Silicon Valley remains a complicated, heartfelt, and intensely uproarious articulation of the struggle to freely realize one’s creative yearnings.
It typifies American politics with a brand of acidic cynicism that yields big laughs and increasingly unlikable characters.
The Path is content to focus on a variety of rote melodramatic byways that give little in the way of insight into the fight between faith and personal desire.
Even small acts of open silliness are portrayed as inherently helpful in creating a kind of unity and friendship among what are, essentially, strangers.
The term “antihero” is applicable to Lucifer in this case, but not entirely accurate.
Given Portlandia’s flippant depiction of youth, the plots involving middle-aged characters feel considerably more resonant and sincere, and as such more funny.
Baskets quickly devolves into a dreadful, if strange and intermittently fascinating, comedy of bleakness.
Jessica Jones is a far more socially aware series than Netflix’s Daredevil, but it lacks for its predecessor’s consistent, enveloping style.