Television

WATCH CLOSELY: “The Midnight Club” — Late Nights

November 14, 2022
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The Midnight Club contains all the ingredients necessary for a perfect spooky season binge: a Gothic mansion, extremely disaffected yet self-aware young people, moody cinematography, and gorgeous interiors, including the coolest library you’ve ever seen.

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Television/Music Review: Next at the Kennedy Center — A Joni Mitchell Songbook, on PBS

November 13, 2022
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I put Joni Mitchell on a short list of the most remarkable pop music artists of the ’60s and early ’70s. Longevity of excellence isn’t the point here, just peak incandescence.

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Television Review: Guillermo del Toro’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” — Well Worth Opening

October 29, 2022
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This is a terrific start for a series that may live up to the promise of The Twilight Zone: it will take you “on a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.”

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Television Review: “The School for Good and Evil” — Too Complicated for its Own Good

October 24, 2022
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Based on the YA series by Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil offers little that is new about the adventures of discontented adolescents.

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Television Review: “Rosaline” — Burlesquing the Bard’s “Star-Cross’d Lovers”

October 19, 2022
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Every few years a smart teen rom-com comes along that deftly puts a modern, and pleasingly iconoclastic, spin on a classic piece of literature.

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Film Review: William Kentridge’s Wondrous “Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot”

October 6, 2022
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The nine-part film series focuses on the artist in his studio in Johannesburg. We see William Kentridge as he draws, paints, designs, paces the floor, and thinks out loud — among other things.

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Culture Commentary: World War II Was a Race War, and It Isn’t Over

October 1, 2022
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It isn’t exactly news that the genocide of Native Americans was a model for Hitler, but it hit with fresh force in The U.S. and the Holocaust.

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Television Review: Season Three of “Ramy” — Spreading the Drama Around

September 28, 2022
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Ramy’s drama takes a backseat to those of his relatives and friends, and that ends up expanding the reach and power of the series.

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Television Review: Disney’s Live-Action “Pinocchio” — A Necessary Remake

September 20, 2022
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There are cringe-worthy moments as well as scenes of mesmerizing beauty in Disney’s live-action Pinocchio. But I’ll go against the critical grain and argue, for several small reasons, and for one big one, that it was necessary to make it.

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WATCH CLOSELY: Post-Emmy Recommendations

September 14, 2022
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Television is the new art cinema, chock full of superb examples of storytelling across multiple genres.

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