Powers Boothe (1948-2017)

Powers Boothe with his daughter Parisse (both acted in DEADWOOD) at a 2006 Emmy partyThe Emmy winning character actor Powers Boothe, best known for screen villains on TV (Deadwood, Nashville) and in movies (Sin City, Tombstone) died yesterday morning in his sleep from natural causes. After Shakespearean work on stage after college, his screen career began with "bad Shakespeare" as part of the Richard III play within the Oscar nominated comedy The Goodbye Girl (1977) in which he mostly lays like a corpse on a table while Dreyfus overacts the hunchback around him. The on camera career stretched for nearly another 40 years ending with the recurring baddie role as one of HYDRA's top leaders  "Gideon Malick" on  the third season of Marvel's AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015/2016).  

The native Texan was 68 years old and is survived by his wife of 48 years (they married in college before his acting career began) and their two children. After the jump a quick survey of key roles... 

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Goodbye to "Girls"

by Chris Feil

This Sunday HBO ended the six season run of Girls, Lena Dunham’s caustic and compassionate take on millennial Brooklynites. The series ended much as it began: with a wide range of qualitative opinions, as frustrating as it was rife with conversation points, uneven but special.

The final season was its the choppiest since its earliest days, often one of its more unsatisfying. After seeming primed to get her shit together at the end of season five, that charged feeling of a new life chapter was delivered in the unexpected form of Hannah’s pregnancy. Marnie was running out of gas as her divorce finalized and her music career was on its most pathetic last legs. Elijah inched closer to Broadway. Jessa took a backseat as a villain without much of a story, and Shoshana was barely there at all, even less than usual. Despite its comic stride holding up from the previous season, this season’s form felt sloppy and scattered despite Hannah’s long-game story arc.

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"Big Little Lies" Finale - The MVPs

 Previously: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, and Episode 6 

by Nathaniel R

Is Big Little Lies the richest miniseries in recent memory? Its seventh hour was burdened with extravagant expectations and seemingly far too many character arcs, story suggestions, actual plot, and general areas of concern (domestic abuse, female friendship, infidelity, emotional crises, childhood bullying, responsible parenting) to cover in sixty minutes. An impossible task in terms of satisfying its rabid fanbase, surely. And yet here we are. Jean-Marc Vallée (who directed every episode), his crew, and his astonishing actresses, pulled it all together gorgeously and even completely (no second season is necessary, thank you; leave beautiful things alone).

Spoilers obviously follow in this wrap-up list...

Top Ten Top Twelve MVPs of Big Little Lies, Episode 7
"You Get What You Need"

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Big Little Lies MVPs: Episode 5 "Once Bitten"

Previously: episode 1 and 2, episode 3 and episode 4. Here's Nathaniel's take on Episode 5

In the fifth episode, we've reached what has to be a boiling point as Jane, Madeline, Celeste and Renata all seem to be coming absolutely unhinged simultaneously. Spoiler alert for the rest of this post: this show is just superb and it's giving us more actressing than we even know what to do with. *tosses roses at television*

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies. Episode 5 "Once Bitten"

10. Madeline's Dream
Bonus points to the show for having a sense of humor about its hardcore annoying refusal to let us know who was murdered. Also any Avenue Q reference is golden.  

09 "Bully Free Zone"
That damn bright yellow & red sign. 

Don't you feel like it's constantly just taunting everyone in the school? At least half of the adults in this show are bullies themselves and everyone seems so helplessly ill equipped to deal with bullying in school on top of their other issues... 

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Doc Corner: The Confined Spaces of 'Solitary'

by Glenn Dunks

Solitary could have gone in many different directions. Filmed over a year inside the supermax solitary confinement prison of Red Onion, Virginia, all sorts of independent narratives that are weaved throughout could have made for their own captivating feature. There are the guards, disturbed by what they see, and the death of the region’s prime coal mining industry that brought them to this line of work. There are the crimes of the prisoners, most of them violent, some of them not so. And then there is, like Ava DuVernay’s (broader, superior) Oscar-nominated 13th, the system itself that is obviously damaged and flawed at its very core.

It's nice, but also a little frustrating, then that director Kristi Jacobson (known best for 2012’s A Place at the Table) chose something far less sensational by focusing on the concept of nature versus nurture. Nice because that feels rare in film, but frustrating because it doesn't make the most of its unique access while doing so...

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