By Anne Brodie Barry Jenkins’ long-anticipated 10-part series The Underground Railroad based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead is now on Amazon Prime. It’s the story of Cora (South African actor Thuso Mbedu), a young Black slave attempting to get the hell out of Dodge (Georgia) and head north where she hears there is freedom. Her life has… View Post
By Anne Brodie Most of us were raised on Sesame Street, one of the most inventive, influential and popular children’s television programmes, next to Mister Rogers Neighbourhood, in history. Marilyn Agrelo and Michael Davis’ documentary Street Gang How We Got to Sesame Street goes back to the show’s unlikely roots and traces its flowering, the characters and ideas along the… View Post
By Anne Brodie My pick this week is the Apple TV+‘ Mosquito Coast, a remake of the Harrison Ford / Helen Mirren / River Phoenix drama of 1986, both based on Paul Theroux’s novel about a family on the run. The original was shatteringly intense and it was the first time I interviewed River Phoenix. Theroux’s nephew Justin Theroux executive… View Post
You may know Irish actor Aidan Turner as the darkly handsome hero of TV’s historic hit series Poldark. Turner goes back even further in time for his latest acting challenge, as cultural, technological and scientific polymath Leonardo da Vinci, tracing this complex man’s life, loves and creativity. It also looks at the scandals that swirled around da Vinci, including the… View Post
Ed Helms, Jana Schmieding, Dustin Milligan and Michael Greyeyes in Rutherford Falls, launching Thursday on Showcase, STACK TV and Peacock. Rutherford Falls, a new comedy series created and produced by Ed Helms, Michael Schur (The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place) and Sierra Teller Ornelas (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Superstore, Splitting Up Together), sets a milestone in mainstream television. Rutherford Falls looks at the… View Post
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier now on Disney+ holds so many delights!! Hang on to your hats and meet seismic new characters, stories and an unseemly number of jaw-droppers. By now you know that Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes her MCU debut, making it a little less safe. She is Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and may be the Power Broker,… View Post