Media Watch
TV and movies that have been entertaining me lately, in no particular order

Dying for Sex: A mini-series based on the true story of a woman diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer who makes the most of her life in a quest for sexual pleasure and emotional connection. Starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate, as the best friend you can only hope to have.

Funny, honest, uplifting.

Sorry, Baby: Eva Victor–writer, director, actor–does it all in a feature debut. Sorry, Baby tackles the trauma plot (sexual assault in a college setting) in a way that suggests trauma is not totalizing; it can be overcome with meaningful work, kind acquaintances, and a supportive best friend (played by Naomi Ackie).

Intelligent, sensitive, validating.

Love Lies Bleeding: The antithesis of Sorry, Baby, LLB is a genre flick about domestic violence and retribution starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien as lovers who meet at the gym and take control of their lives by visiting violence on men who deserve it.

Revenge fantasy fulfilled.

Reservation Dogs: Co-created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, this series revolves around the lives of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma. With humor and heart, it addresses the legacy of discrimination and generational trauma while showing the traditions and beliefs that give strength to this particular community, both youth and elders. With episodes directly addressing residential school trauma and the satisfying revenge achieved by a character named Deer Lady.

Moving and imaginative.

Will Trent: An entertaining if fanciful police show featuring law enforcement officers who wear their traumas like badges of honor; protect, rather than destroy, vulnerable individuals and communities; and where most of the bosses, administrators, and executives are people of color.

If only!

The Pitt: An entertaining if fanciful medical show where ER doctors and nurses exhaust themselves with caring, treat even unhoused patients with dignity, draw attention to economic and other inequities in US healthcare, and where professionals are willing to do anything “to help people on the worst day of their lives.” Honors the experience of healthcare workers.

To patients who’ve gone to an actual ER lately, a surreal fantasy.

KIMI: A satisfying Steven Soderbergh film in which Zoe Kravitz plays an agoraphobic tech worker who must leave her apartment and her panic to get justice for a murdered woman. A reminder of Covid isolation and its consequences. The triumphant ending made me want to go out and buy a nail gun immediately.

What one motivated woman can do!

The Christophers: Another Steven Soderbergh cat-and-mouse game with Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen playing two painters arguing about the nature of art and artists and what constitutes a meaningful legacy. With Jessica Gunning and James Corden in hilarious spot-on performances as the older artist’s greedy, scheming children.
 
Poirot: When the world is out of control, nothing soothes quite like a mystery solved by the fastidious Belgian detective, with help from Inspector Japp, Miss Lemon, and Hastings. Expect polite sipping of tisanes to aid the little grey cells and much mustache grooming.
 
Astrid: Another fastidious crime-solver is at work in Astrid, a French-Belgian police show pairing a young woman with autism with a much more chaotic detective. Yes, the mysteries are ingenious puzzles, but far more interesting is the relationship that develops between two very different women trying to understand and respect each other’s needs.

Candyman: Nia DaCosta’s bloody, spectacularly shot film uses the horror genre and the mythic figure of the Candyman to dramatize the pain and rage of black Americans enduring racist aggressions of varying types and degrees. Revenge is sweet, and the film invites us to contemplate the threat inherent in Saying His Name. 
 
Exit 8: A film by Genki Kawamura based on a Japanese video game about the importance of paying attention, both to your surroundings and to the needs of the people around you. Repetition builds momentum as inevitable as Ravel’s Bolero on the soundtrack.

 

Highest 2 Lowest: Spike Lee’s remake of Kurosawa’s High and Low, an acting tour de force for Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright, is a love letter to New York City and to black culture. Appreciate the paintings by Kehinde Wiley, Deborah Roberts, Michael Ray Charles, the shoutouts to characters in Toni Morrison novels, the side trips to Yankee Stadium and to the Puerto Rican Day Parade featuring a performance by Eddie Palmieri, and the soaring opening featuring Norm Lewis’ rendition of “Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin.'”

 

Sunny: The best tv show about female friendship since Cagney and Lacey, although one of the females happens to be a robot. Rashida Jones plays Suzie, a grieving American in Japan, whose missing husband leaves her a robot as a companion. I love Suzie for her negativity, problematic coping, profanity, and bag-like clothing. Unfortunately a woman who does not try to please others is soon cancelled! Still a single season worth watching.