Essays on TV and film — exploring stories, characters, and the choices behind them.
The mug is a good place to start. In a publicity photograph for The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a bearded man stands beside a breakfast table on a boat, with calm blue water behind him. His gun stays at his waist while he holds his drink. It is an inviting image for a movie about … Read more
The Seemingly Perfect Family arrives on Netflix with an irresistible label: “inspired by true events.” It also reached No. 1 on Netflix’s US movie chart on September 20. But the label answers less than it appears to. Lifetime’s official page does not name a case, a victim, or even the event that supposedly inspired the … Read more
No, not in the usual sense. The longer answer is more useful. Netflix’s Best of the Best is not presented as the biography of one dance team. Maya and Anjali are characters, and UCLA Agni is not the name of UCLA’s real Bollywood-fusion team. The national contest they chase, however, was not invented for the … Read more
Jo Koy’s new Netflix special is called Blue in the Face, and the obvious material is right there in the official description: a dental disaster, a McDonald’s firing, and stories about his veteran stepdad. Those are the bits Netflix is selling. The more revealing choice may be where he recorded the hour. This is … Read more
Crew Girl is the No. 1 TV show on Netflix in the United States right now, five days after it arrived. That is a better reason to look at it than to pretend a show about prep-school rowing has suddenly made America curious about regattas. Netflix has put out all eight episodes at once. … Read more