Review: Dead to Me (Season 1)

By Spencer Coile 

In recent years, Netflix has held the honor and burden of bringing to life countless TV series – giving a voice to talent previously under or unseen. While it has become impossible to keep up with everything the platform currently has to offer, it also allows its creators, writers, and directors to tell their stories on their terms. Gone are the days where television was situated comfortably in the binary of comedy and drama. Now we have space carved out for shows that subvert our expectations, make us uncomfortable, and if we’re lucky, invite us into the artist’s vision. 

Liz Feldman takes complete advantage of this genre fluidity. Her Netflix creation, Dead to Me (streaming now), is a darkly comic meditation on grief and the ways it manifests within our interpersonal relationships. Featuring especially remarkable turns from two typically underutilized actresses, Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, Dead to Me is a prickly, but surprisingly personal examination into how we process trauma... 

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Fosse/Verdon - EP 3: "Me and My Baby"

Previously: Episode 1 and Episode 2

by Eric Blume

Fosse/Verdon certainly isn’t flawless, but it’s very strong out of the gate in these first three episodes.  Hamilton director Thomas Kail guided the first two episodes with an assured hand, throwing us headfirst into the theater world with little set-up, allowing audiences to feel their way into the environment, and trusting that his two star performances will keep people hooked.  His instincts were right on, and despite some awkward editing and temporal shifts, the show is arresting, absorbing, and intelligent.

Episode Three is directed by Adam Bernstein, a very talented guy who won an Emmy for 30 Rock and was nominated for Fargo...

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Game of Thrones "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (S08E02)

previously

by Eric Blume

The Game of Thrones creative team are taking a very strategic approach into this final season.  While last week’s premiere episode laid the groundwork to reorient the viewer and feature satisfying reunions for characters parted for years, they’ve used Episode Two to provide an emotional tapestry between the characters, with a meditation on mortality, before they go into the big battle episodes ahead.  For loyal viewers, this episode served as a reminder of our attachment to these characters beyond the narrative, as well as a laser focus on the show’s main theme of honor.

We started with a killer scene where Jaime stands trial against the two families he has slain and wronged over the years, followed immediately by a tender exchange between him and his brother Tyrion (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage are always magical together)...

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Game of Thrones "Winterfell" (S08E01)

Eric & Ben will be covering the television event of the summer for us, the finale of Game of Thrones - Editor

BEN: Alright Eric, first thing's first: who do you watch with? I'm watching with my two brothers. One understands everything, but doesn't watch it religiously, while the other has never seen a minute. I'll also say that we watched while slightly impaired.  

ERIC: I'll watch the whole season with my husband, who is a complete sci-fi/fantasy nerd (he even liked Krull)...and quite frankly, without him, I don't know what I'd do.  I'm always saying "who's that again?" when one of the minor characters comes on.  The premiere seems like it's just an establishing episode?  Not tons of actual drama, but they have a lot of stories to unify, and I think they met that very challenging task smartly, did you...?

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Game of Thrones. The Final Season Approaches

Though The Film Experience has not covered Game of Thrones in the past beyond the occasional mention, a couple of our contributors are big fans and since the final season is the television event of the year, we're opting to break tradition and cover each episode. Here are Eric Blume and Ben Miller, who will be writing up the final episodes, to grill each other on their experience of the series to date if you'd like to join them in this refresher. - Editor.

ERIC:  Ben, I’m excited about working on this project with you. Let's start at the beinning: Have you been a fan of the show since the first episode, or did you join somewhere in progress?  What made you fall in love with it?

BEN: I got into it on the ground floor.  I was never much of a fantasy book reader (no Harry Potter, no Lord of the Rings), but this seemed like one of the first shows where people were genuinely excited for the potential of what it could be.  I knew a few people who had read the books, but I went in fairly cold and with an open mind.  You also have to keep in mind of what HBO was doing at the time...

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