Amy Glynn

The Cry is an intelligent psychological thriller that will focus and refocus your suspicions and loyalties, all the while evocatively demonstrating the shifting power dynamics, rotating roles and changing presumptions that characterize a marriage where something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

It’s a gripping performance by a charismatic young actress with a very good supporting cast and a tightly woven artistic vision. It’s also, honestly, a bit of a drag. Incredibly well-executed, yes. Problematic too. On balance, highly worth a watch.

The vibe is (for an update bent on respecting and reflecting contemporary social cues) strangely nostalgic, and that’s not a criticism. It works. ... The series’ strengths include super solid acting all around.

The script is, unsurprisingly, annunciation-grade, luminously funny and strikingly poignant—and considering the principal characters include angels, demons and witches, (and a tween Antichrist) it’s as human as they come. ... But as good as everything is, as good as everyone is, the locus of this translation’s magic is the to-perish-for chemistry between Michael Sheen’s angel Aziraphale and David Tennant’s demon Crowley.

The series has captured the look and feel of the abbey and its inhabitants very well, and it has a lot of dialogue that’s taken directly from the novel. But never fear, it also does the novel one better by adding a bunch of stuff. Like an Arya Stark character. And a love story.

Hulu’s Catch-22 is considerably more linear than Heller’s original novel, but not in a way that sacrifices the anti-bureaucracy-and antistupidity-message. As panic stricken bombardier John Yossarian, Christopher Abbott successfully takes on a role that was thoroughly owned by Alan Arkin. He’s convincing, equally so in dramatic and comedic moments (and there are plenty of both). ... At risk of overusing the word “Zeitgeist,” Catch-22 is a meaningful, enduring example of it.

Everything about the series is brilliantly tragic and horrid, narratively and artistically. But the vein of absolute horror that runs through it is the knowledge that this really happened.

I think it’s safe to posit that State of the Union is the right iteration of what it is, a marriage of form and function that is at least as functional as the marriage it depicts.

It’s a thoroughly decent exploration of the contest between ethics and burgeoning power, as well as a war of wills between a messed-up, morally “flexible” patriarch and his progeny.

Not everything about the series works ... But certainly watch Gentleman Jack. Watch it for an interesting depiction of 19th-century Yorkshire society ... Watch it for Jones’ forceful, vivacious, smart-as-hell portrayal.

Sam Rockwell is excellent as the passionate, manipulative, adulation-seeking Fosse. As Gwen Verdon, Michelle Williams is very nearly perfect. ... The bigger issue, and I’m not sure how much it could’ve been avoided, is that the “destructive artist and long-suffering helpmeet/muse” trope gets really freaking old.

Shrill is a sharp and genuine investigation of what it means to become yourself.

As competent as it is, the film just doesn’t bite very hard.

It’s keen-eyed and unflinching without giving in to the temptation to make everyone as bad as possible; even the authorities are human beings. Because of this, it holds the tragedy of squandered human potential up to the light. It doesn’t have a complicated plot, and because of that you can see how much is really going on. It eschews sentimentality and achieves genuine feeling.

What you will see in Song of Parkland, unfortunately, is inchoate fluff. Even at its very modest runtime, the film can’t seem to keep its attention on anything approaching a through line. It skips from subject to subject almost randomly, sets up one premise and defects to another, and remains remarkably free of depth.

[Erskine and Konkle are] hilarious, and there are moments when you entirely forget they’re adults. And then there are moments when that fact sticks out like a sore thumb and those moments are possibly the best, because they evoke the competing impulses of the age--to race into adulthood and to go back to the safety of childhood—with a kind of zany, surreal brilliance. .... But one gets the sense pretty quickly that these are two gifted performers who haven’t yet experienced enough of their own lives to have a season’s worth of stuff to say.

By making Fauna, and Jay, the twin centers of a story that is nonetheless about George and a high-profile murder victim, I Am The Night becomes the dramatic equivalent of a name-dropping social media poseur.

Reviewer Me says it’s entertaining, Cumberbatch is great, the script is pretty good. Philosopher Me still has a lot of questions.

Sex Education is pretty much the most adorable show I’ve seen in a long time. It’s frank and sincere and gleefully awkward. As an anatomy of teen sexuality, it’s basically peerless, and it offers a thoughtful script, a strikingly good cast and a heart-forward story about “owning your narrative.”

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo will convince the most cynical among us that it’s reasonable to derive joy from every single thing in your house, and that anything you’re hanging onto that doesn’t provoke a joy reaction should be seriously held to account. ... What’s interesting about Tidying Up is that it isn’t especially voyeuristic--and that seems to be what makes it work.