Streaming Review: "Pen15" (Hulu) Ends With Season Two

By: Christopher James

"Pen15" comes to a close with the seven episode batch that was released Friday, December 3rd.Saying goodbye to Pen15 feels a lot like writing a long note in a friend’s yearbook at the end of eighth grade. There are lots of laughs, lots of tears and you are full of complicated emotions that you don’t fully know how to process. In just two (actually three) seasons, Pen15 perfectly encapsulated the isolating growing pains of middle school, both in terms of navigating changes in social dynamics and one’s own body.

Does it stick its landing in the final seven episodes, now available on Hulu?

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Doc Corner: Robert Greene's 'Procession'

By Glenn Dunks

It’s become somewhat predictable that a new Robert Greene will challenge an audience as much as it enthrals. He doesn’t exactly pick the most digestible of subject matter, but the way he comes at them is always so interesting and refreshingly unique that it becomes more than just a dour excursion into humanity’s darkest corners. While some may question his tactics, often interpolating traditional non-fiction form with performance and scripted drama, there is nonetheless a quality to his works that poke and prod at the most sensitive parts of a viewer’s brain.

His latest, the Netflix-distributed Catholic Church abuse drama Procession is no different. More so, it’s the best documentary of the year.

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'Boiling Point' is a One-Shot Tension Machine

By Ben Miller

Filmed as one continuous tracking shot, Philip Barantini's Boiling Point uses this technique to enhance its story rather than using it as a gimmick.  Filled with colorful characters and featuring a stellar lead performance from Stephen Graham, the film ratchets up the tension to show the immense pressures an upscale London restaurant faces on a daily basis.

Andy Jones (Graham) runs a hot new restaurant in London.  As the head chef, his responsibilities are endless.  With pressures mounting in his personal life, Andy enters to start work on a busy night...

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“King Richard” Serves Up A Real Crowdpleaser

by Christopher James

Everyone has to start somewhere - even Venus and Serena Williams.Early on in King Richard, Will Smith’s Richard Williams drills his daughters - Venus and Serena - on serving. Their goal, to hit a precise spot on the court where a stack of balls lie. Even as pre-teens, they are able to achieve remarkable precision with their shots. This drill is an apt metaphor for Reinaldo Marcus Green’s latest film, King Richard. It always hits the spot on the court, just as you expected it to.

King Richard never subverts the tropes of the inspirational sports movie, it just tries to do them better. This doesn’t make it a daring or interesting film, but the formula does work incredibly well...

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Doc Corner: 'Listening to Kenny G' and 'Jagged' at DOC NYC

By Glenn Dunks

DOC NYC starts today. The festival runs for in-person screenings from November 10–18 and then continues online until November 28. I have a Twitter thread covering what I am watching, but here we are looking at two music docs about artists from very different ends of the spectrum: Kenny G and Alanis Morissette.

Trust director Penny Lane to make a biographic documentary about a musician and have it not be the same old same old. The American filmmaker has been on a tear lately with Nuts! (about goat testicle charlatans), The Pain of Others (about Morgellons disease), and Hail Satan! (about the Satanic Temple). This run continues with the wittily assembled Listening to Kenny G, which plays today as the opening night film of DOC NYC.

Lane’s film isn’t the standard musician bio-doc, although it does chart his career from the early days discovering music in school and does make a spotlight out of his career highs and lows. What makes Listening to Kenny G so invigorating of a watch is because of the greater story within which this narrative is placed. One that interrogates the controversial anti-populous appeal of the multi-instrumentalist’s smooth jazz stylings from all angles.

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