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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Litte Fires Everywhere in TV

Aug 23, 2020

The ensemble cast: outstanding (1 more)

An intelligent and often uncomfortable script

Gripping study of racism in small-town america

Flighty artist Mia (Kelly Washington) moves into the picture-perfect community of Shaker Heights Ohio with her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) and is welcomed by busybody mum Elena (Reese Witherspoon). But as racial tensions, teenage passions and secrets from the past emerge, a pressure-cooker of tension builds.

This is an outstanding drama in the mould of Big Little Lies, and equally supported by an outstanding cast. Kerry Washington is Emmy nominated and justly so. But equally impressive is the young cast, particularly Lexi Underwood as Pearl and Megan Stott, who has a magnetic screen presence as Izzy and who I would predict great things for.

It’s a script that buzzes with uncomfortable racial tensions in these days of Black Lives Matters, and is gripping to the end.

I just hope that - unlike Westworld - they call it a day with this one perfect series.

Watch it!!

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Vast of Night (2019) in Movies

Jun 6, 2020

The Vast of Night (2019)

2019 | Mystery, Sci-Fi

7.0

(2 Ratings)

Movie Rating

High-concept, low-budget SF movie. It's the night of the year's first basketball game somewhere in Texas, and most people are watching. But small-town DJ Everett and switchboard operator Fay aren't, and they start to get strange reports of mysterious radio signals and peculiar lights. The same phrase recurs again and again: there's something in the sky...

Framed as a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits pastiche, and while the subject matter is certainly similar, much of the style is not: long takes, either static or mobile, rattling dialogue, a sort of self-consciousness about form which is only to be expected in a directorial debut. Interesting subtext about the aliens' agenda and the people prepared to speak up about their experiences (generally speaking, it's people from the lowest strata of society). Genuinely tense and even a bit eerie in places: Rod Serling would never have written something so oblique, but I think he would have appreciated its quality regardless.