Alastair Sim: A Very English Character Actor Genius
Alastair Sim belongs to those character actors sometimes accused of "hamming it up" because they work at such a high level of internal and external technique that they can't help standing out.
comedy
Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Love as Longing
In season two of Fleabag, The Priest's inaccessibility turns him into a sort of god, powerful enough for Fleabag to suddenly find herself spending hours in church with no religious motivation.
Don’t Let Roseanne Barr Ruin Roseanne’s Legacy
Watching the Roseanne family's hopes and dreams dashed over nine seasons made the show highly relatable then -- and now.
The Obstacles in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Are Not Typical of MCU
Peyton Reed's "Disney-fied" Ant-Man and the Wasp is unchallenging in all the best ways.
‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ Gorgeously Conveys Our Need for Poise and Elegance
The sense of artifice in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel helped him create an alluring reverie of both color and meaning.
The Highs Are Higher, the Lows Lower in ‘Deadpool 2’
The first half of Deadpool 2, in which Vanessa is murdered and Wade becomes purposeless and suicidal, is a slog. The second half, where Wade commits to defending an angry teenage mutant, positively soars with fantastic action and some of the funniest superhero film moments in years.
Drag Queen Trixie Mattel Tells All
How the joke-telling, cosmetic-slinging country music star Trixie Mattel sees the world.
‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ Is Better Than Okay
The first season of Freeform's Everything's Gonna Be Okay is a funny, big-hearted love letter to family.
A Fix of Fantasy: Reviving the Wondrous Films of Karel Zeman
The imaginative filmmaker Karel Zeman influenced many artists including Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, fellow Czech Jan Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, and animator Lawrence Jordan's recycling of classic 19th Century imagery.
Nostalgia for the Downtown Slacker: Bertoglio’s ‘Downtown 81’ and Linklater’s ‘Slacker’
Bertoglio’s Downtown 81 and Linklater’s Slacker showcase blissfully aimless, anarchic souls discretely or overtly spurning a predictable, soulless society.
Great Scots: ‘Whiskey Galore!’ and ‘The Maggie’
Two Scottish comedies from Alexander Mackendrick, Whiskey Galore! and The Maggie, were part of Ealing Studios movies meant for a depressed postwar England to "let off steam".