TV: "Succession" Course-Corrects With Third Episode of Final Season

By Christopher James

Some episodes of TV are above and beyond the show’s they’re housed in. Season four, episode three of Succession raised an already strong show to new heights. A twist early enough in the episode sets the final season in a new direction and gives Emmy-ready tapes for its crew of actors.

In full honesty, I was working on an article about Succession jumping the shark. A once dynamic series which captivated audiences and critics was just spinning its wheels tossing business jargon and curses into an incomprehensible word salad. Much of season three featured the Roy clan rehashing more of the same. However, episode three of the new season is flooring. 

SPOILERS TO IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW...

Click to read more ...

Emmy Category Analysis: Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

By Abe Friedtanzer

Sydney Sweeney as Cassie in Euphoria

Not a single one of last year’s nominees in this category was eligible this time around. Only two nominees this year have been nominated before for these roles (despite a few other eligible previous nominees like Chrissy Metz, Millie Bobby Brown, and Fiona Shaw):  Two-time winner Julia Garner, looking to make it three for three for the final season of Ozark, and Sarah Snook, back for the juggernaut nominations leader Succession. There’s plenty of new competition, though, that could make the outcome interesting.

Brief descriptions of the nominees below - click on the episode titles for spoiler-filled reviews…

Click to read more ...

Emmy Review: Supporting Actress in a Drama

By Abe Friedtanzer

The nominations in this category were mostly expected save for the snub, once again, of Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul. Julia Garner, Thandie Newton, Samira Wiley, and Laura Dern have all won Emmys for these roles but only Newton and Wiley have ever competed against each other (and both lost). There’s no clear frontrunner but a handful of possibilities who could win here in a category that features a lot of very strong choices.  

I’ll try to avoid major plot details in my analysis – but if you’d like more spoiler-filled descriptions, click on the episode titles. Let’s consider each nominee…

Click to read more ...

Review: An American Pickle

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Seth Rogen has built a career mostly composed of comedies of all kinds, from stoner films to dysfunctional family dramedies. In his past decade of work only Take This Waltz and Steve Jobs  can be considered dramatic. In An American Pickle, directed by Brandon Trost and written by Simon Rich, Rogen does not leave his comedy roots but instead, digs deeper with the humor and comic storytelling.

An American Pickle is about Herschel Greenbaum (Rogen), a Jewish man from 1919 Russia  who moves to New York with his wife Sarah (Succession’s Sarah Snook) in search of a better life after an anti-Semitic attack on their hometown. However, an accident in a pickle factory causes him to be brined for 100 years. After waking up in 2019, he connects with his only living relative Ben (also Rogen)...

Click to read more ...

Review: The Glass Castle

This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

‘This would be easier to take on the page.’

That thought kept striking me from odd angles all during the new movie THE GLASS CASTLE  now playing nationwide. In 2005 the writer Jeanette Walls turned the rags of her childhood into adult riches with her memoir “The Glass Castle.”  The book won several awards and sold millions of copies. It was translated into dozens of languages. The big screen, however, has a tricky vocabulary and grammar all its own.

The Glass Castle flashes back-and-forth between adult Jeanette Walls (Brie Larson), a gossip columnist ashamed of her oft-homeless parents (Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts), and her memories of her difficult nomadic childhood...

Click to read more ...