Club’s most anticipated TV of 2. Previously, on The A. V. Club: We previewed the next few months of TV premieres, casting (more often than not) an objective eye toward reboots of the sitcom and fantasy variety, a notably young pope, and a noticeably buffer Archie.
Now its time to endorse some programs from further on in the TV calendar, either because we’ve seen them (pro tip: Santa Clarita Dietis delectably loopy, but it’s not great for mealtime viewing) or because we’re eager to see what they’ve got (are the owls in Twin Peaksstill not what they seem?). And we’ve thrown some returning favorites into the mix, too, because when you’re looking after a forest of 4. TV shows, you can’t just mind the saplings. You want to pay some attention to the shows that are about to be cut down, or the ones that are suddenly blooming after several years of dormancy, too. In some corners, American Gods is always going to be the show that kept Bryan Fuller from fulfilling his destiny of captaining a Star Trek series. But this Neil Gaiman adaptation is an equally ideal match of producer and source material, given Fuller’s prior TV treatmentsof the hereafter and all the potential for rococo imagery and rich psychological detail inherent in American Gods’ clash between the mythical beings of the old world and their modern- day counterparts. These gods and goddesses are played by Fuller repertory players (Gillian Anderson, Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Davies, Beth Grant, Orlando Jones), seasoned character actors (Ian Mc.
His standup comedy and his new movie, “The Big Sick,” offer portrayals of secular Muslims that American audiences rarely see.
Shane, Cloris Leachman, Jonathan Tucker, Pablo Schreiber), and, er, Dane Cook, who form the constellation of personalities swirling around Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an evocatively named protagonist who’s newly widowed and newly out of prison. Shadow soon takes up with the even more evocatively named Wednesday (Mc. Shane), pulling him into an out- of- this- world adventure that might not be Fuller at the helm of the Starship Discovery, but might also be the closest you’re going to get to that long- delayed Sandman movie. Biological threat contained?—and as the show kicks off its two- season endgame, current events have conspired to make The Americans TV’s most relevant ongoing drama, too.
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While tensions between Washington and Moscow reignite the Cold War in the real world, the 1. The Americans finds Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) taking on a new mission that, judging by production stills released in December, has something to do with the airline industry. A show about keeping secrets must guard its own with extreme caution, though there are a few reliable online sources for leaks from the set. Co- showrunner Joel Fields isn’t shy about revealingepisode titles or directorialassignments on his Twitter feed, while costume designer Katie Irish provides the occasional glimpse at the Reagan- era styles and fashion inspirations that are due to make their way to the screen.
Judging by one recent tweet, somebody’s due for a new- wave makeover—our money’s on young Henry Jennings. Larry David is not Larry David, the exaggeratedly curmudgeonly co- creator of Seinfeldthat he plays on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
But the real Larry David’s arrangement with HBO would incite the envy of the fake one: When he doesn’t feel like making more episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, he doesn’t make more episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And when he does, he does. And for the first time in half a decade, Larry David feels like making more episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, reuniting with Cheryl Hines, Jeff Garlin, J. B. Smoove, Susie Essman, Ted Danson, and Mary Steenburgen for a fresh round of faux pas and broken social contracts in 2. And with an asshole (Say it like Essman: “Asshole!”) who always says what’s on his mind rising to the most powerful office in the land, David’s timing couldn’t be better. Comedy thrives on specificity, and it doesn’t get more specific than the inspiration for this single- camera sitcom created by and starring real- life best friends and actual Michiganders Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson. Drawing on shared memories of the type of low- budget TV commercial that would cast a former Detroit Lions runningback as an automobile- peddling superhero, Richardson and Robinson cast themselves as small- time Motor City ad men who wouldn’t last one pitch with Don Draper.
It’s man- child mayhem in the Workaholicsmode, with the whole enterprise underscored by a comeback narrative for the titular city and the seen- better- days ad agency run by Richardson and Robinson’s characters. Ultimately, it’s the bond between the central goofballs that sells Detroiters—but the dozen or so Metro Detroit- raised comedy nerds who’ve had the “Get A Dawg- Gone Good Deal” jingle stuck in their heads for the last 3. Download Streaming Divx Movies Ottoman Lieutenant (2017). The last time the Home Box Office Time Machine traveled back to 1. New York, it didn’t work out so well.
You can say this for Vinyl, though: Even at its lowest, most- coked- out, ranting- at- full- volume- about- the- authenticity- of- Bo- Diddley low, Terence Winter’s (and Martin Scorsese’s and Mick Jagger’s and Rich Cohen’s) record- industry chronicle provided something to gawk at. The show the trades call the “HBO porn drama” looks at the pornography trade in Times Square, following its legalization in the early ’7. Lest the title put you in mind of the scatological, The Deuce was actually the nickname for the infamous stretch of 4. Street that was dotted with grindhouses during this time period—though you could draw a numerical connection there, too, with James Franco headlining the series in the dual role of twins Vincent and Frankie Martino. Murphy.” Before you can even say “A dramatization of the backstage tensions between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis during production of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?” it already sounds like the most deliriously campy project to ever hit basic cable. Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon star as Crawford and Davis, respectively, with Ryan Murphy and his American Horror Storycohort Tim Minear recreating the notorious Hollywood rivalry that came to a head on the set of the Robert Aldrich’s 1. Warner, and Judy Davis as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.) Judging by the mountain of awards won by The People V.
Simpson and the positive notices earned by American Horror Story: Roanoke, it might seem like Murphy’s run as TV’s enfant terrible is at an end. Building Lange and Sarandon a mansion of scenery to chew might prove that Murphy’s mischievous streak is still alive—and with Minear by his side, that streak doesn’t run the risk of sending the whole project tumbling down the stairs. The pilot that later became 3. Rockwas set in the world of cable news, so this workplace comedy would carry a whiff of TGS With Tracy Jordan even if it wasn’t produced by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock or backed by a zippy Jeff Richmond score. Rock was also where Great News creator Tracey Wigfield got her start (penning scripts for “Jackie Jormp- Jomp,” “Queen Of Jordan,” and the Emmy- winning series finale), and she successfully transplants that show’s joke- a- second pacing and behind- the- scenes hijinks to the misadventures of struggling producer named Katie(Briga Heelan). Katie’s office woes are compounded when her mother, Carol (Andrea Martin), lands an internship on her daughter’s show, complicating their relationship but finally giving the staff someone who can soothe the fragile ego of news anchor Chuck Pierce (John Michael Higgins).
A supporting- cast MVP on Cougar Town, Love, and Undateable, Heelan has been a screwball talent in search of a spotlight for several years; she gets several worthy foils here—Horatio Sanz, Adam Campbell, even Nicole Richie—but the worthiest is Martin, the SCTValum who’s proof that there’s a lot of longevity in this type of battiness. Originally published in 1. Margaret Atwood’s novel of theocratic dystopia is the type of book that calls out to be visualized while simultaneously setting up hurdles to a successful screen adaptation.
Movies Where Women Rule The Screen. We’re still picking through all the data that Hannah Anderson and Matt Daniels uncovered this month in their study of onscreen spoken words by gender. The short version is that men get to talk a lot more than women do in movies overall, and it’s a rare film indeed that gives women more time to speak than the men. We thought it’d be fun and educational to take a look at the thirteen films (among the thousands of notable examples they surveyed) whose original screenplays were most female- focused.
We found a few relationship dramas, naturally some lesbian stories, surprisingly only one out- and- out comedy, and a whole lot of horror. The Craft (1. 99. Movies For Apple Ipod Step (2017). Last year, The Hollywood Reporterbroke the news that The Craft was up for a remake, and that this time it’d have a female director.
It’s understandable that producers would look to this movie to help sate the growing demand for female- centered stories, and not just because the only male character (deservedly) dies halfway through: it’s a horror cult classic with a relatable hook. The story is set at a Catholic girls’ school where a new student falls in with three would- be witches. While all four practice magic, power soon overwhelms whatever moral fiber the other witches ever had, making their deadly three- on- one battle with Sarah all but inevitable. Think Melissa Joan Hart’s Sabrina, but with an R rating.
Grandma (2. 01. 5)Grandma features Lily Tomlin’s first leading role in 2. Elle, a lesbian poet who recently lost her life partner, driving her granddaughter Sage around in a 1. Dodge Royal. They’re seeking $6.
Sage’s abortion, or about 0. And don’t worry, nobody spends too much time reciting actual poetry. Easy A (2. 01. 0)It may be inspired by The Scarlet Letter, but the teen comedy Easy A is more interested in the rumor mill that Hester Prynne had to face than anything like what Dimmesdale and Chillingworth got up to. When Olive is slut- shamed, she decides to lean into the new identity her classmates have assigned her, not by sleeping around (she’s still a virgin) but by pretending to for unselfish reasons, mostly to give bragging rights to boys who are shy losers or closeted homosexuals.
The story is an interesting twist on the usual teen- rumor satires and its 1. Emma Stone’s star status, even though it does borrow more than a little from teen comedies older than Stone was. The Watermelon Woman (1.
The first feature film directed by a black lesbian, The Watermelon Woman is a pretty autobiographical effort from Cheryl Dunye (who also wrote and starred), with the awkward triangle between the main character, her lover and her best friend making up most of the story. But the main character’s obsession – a black lesbian from Philadelphia like herself who starred in 1. Since it wasn’t happening, I invented it.”9. Women (1. 97. 7)Roger Ebert’s favorite film of 1. Women got its story, locations and casting from a series of dreams Robert Altman had, and the director- writer- producer had a powerful enough friend at 2. Century Fox to make his dreams reality.
Even so, it’s the kind of film that wouldn’t have gotten made if Fox hadn’t been rolling in Star Wars money just then. The film focuses on assertive, talkative Millie and shy, awkward Pinky (Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek) with a little side interest in their landlords, the ex- cowboy Edgar and his wife Willie. By the time it’s over, Millie and Pinky have swapped personalities a couple of times, Edgar is out of the picture due to a “gun accident,” and the 3 women are living together in an apartment apparently made entirely of 1. Heavenly Creatures (1. It didn’t quite make Peter Jackson’s career, but Heavenly Creatures proved he could do something other than snarky gore. This true- crime story involved two teenage girls falling under each other’s spell until, when one of their mothers gets ready to move the family out of state, it seems like the most sensible thing in the world to murder Mom so they can stay together. Despite the lurid, Lifetime- y central plot, the movie is hallucinatory and almost lyrical in its approach and captures – to both gentle and horrific effect – how much one person can come to mean to another in the awkward adolescent years.
Most of the locations are accurate to the real- life events, though when they got to the location of the murder, the filmmakers got a little freaked out and shot it a few hundred feet away instead. The Help (2. 01. 1)The highest- grossing (and highest- profile) movie on this list and the second to star Emma Stone, The Help deals with being black and female in Civil Rights- era Jackson, Mississippi, which often meant being a maid, and the maids’ efforts, hand in hand with a white journalist, to promote their better treatment. The civil- rights struggle plays out almost entirely in the social strata only women occupied at the time. Viola Davis could’ve carried the movie all by herself, but she has plenty of (don’t say “help,” don’t say “help”) support: she, Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer were all nominees, with Spencer taking the prize. Was this really just four years before #Oscars.
So. White? 6. Agnes of God (1. A dead baby showing up in a nun’s bedroom sounds like the setup to a bad joke, but Agnes of God has loftier ambitions, even if it never quite achieves them. Jane Fonda, as court psychiatrist Martha Livingston, has the uncomfortable job of deciding whether Sister Agnes is fit to stand trial, with the nuns’ Mother Superior trying to block any investigation that might compromise Agnes’ innocence.
Considering someone must have killed that baby and Agnes gave birth to it, it seems likely that ship has already sailed. When the story was a well- regarded stage play, its ambiguity left critics feeling challenged; as a film, though, those ambiguities don’t really translate. Fonda’s best interaction as an actress is with the non- toxic, tobacco- free reed cigarettes she uses to play a chain- smoker. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1.
Maybe don’t see this one just before or just after hiring any nannies. Or if you do, make sure your nanny isn’t secretly the widow of the monster whom your testimony, broadcast without your knowledge, helped drive to suicide. That’s the mistake Claire makes, and her new hire, “Peyton Flanders,” AKA, Mrs. Mott, AKA The Aforementioned Hand That Rocks the Cradle, has great fun trying to wreck her relationship with her kids, her gardener, her would- be fianc. Must’ve been the greenhouse effect.
Martyrs (2. 00. 8)It’s somewhat disturbing how many of these films are horror films (How many times does Hollywood only pass the Bechdel test with flying colors if one of those colors is blood red?), but none are more disturbing – or polarizing – than Martyrs. Like the first Saw and Hostel, Martyrs is either torture porn, violent victimization as high art, or somewhere in between, depending on who you talk to. It involves a cult that thinks the way to unlock the secrets of heaven is to create martyrs on Earth (via torture, naturally).
One of their victims, grown to adulthood, seeks revenge and, in a sense, gets it. But as the title implies, there are no real winners in this movie.
Except the studios: this French film is being remade for an American audience this year. Precious (2. 00. 9)Suppose you don’t have time to see The Help, Martyrs and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and you want your uplifting tale of female black identity, horrific abuse and twisted domestic life all in one 1. If you want it ultimately uplifting like The Help but with an opening act that seems almost as nihilistic as Martyrs, then Precious is the film for you.
Precious has never known a life without physical, mental and sexual abuse from both parents, and is on her second pregnancy when she learns to read, learns what her mother really is, and learns that her life doesn’t have to be this way. Formerly known as Precious, Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, but everybody agrees that was a bad idea now. Now and Then (1. 99.