All Forms of Art

  I went into Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story expecting a disturbing psychological drama. What I got was something closer to a poorly executed satire. It seems more interested in turning a horrific crime into a feminist statement than in exploring the people and circumstances behind it. The problem isn't the decision to explore the lives of women in a society that offered them very little freedom. There's plenty of material there. The problem is how shallowly the show handles it. A Family Worth Hating Lizzie's stepmother (Rebecca Hall) is introduced as a horrible woman, and her father (Charlie Hunnam) doesn't offer much of a sympathetic alternative. He's an imbecile who seems to care very little about his daughters or their well-being. The family environment is clearly miserable, but the show struggles to turn that misery into something emotionally meaningful. There are attempts to give the stepmother more depth by revealing her unhappiness, but they never qui...

  Jacob Tremblay is a Canadian actor who first caught audiences' attention as a child, but his career has become much more than a promising start. Born in Vancouver on October 5, 2006, Tremblay made his feature-film debut in The Smurfs 2 in 2013 before landing the role that would change his career: Jack in Room . From Room to Wonder Tremblay's performance in Room (2015) established him as an actor who could handle surprisingly demanding material. His portrayal of Jack earned him numerous awards, including the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Actor/Actress and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Rather than staying in one type of role, Tremblay continued experimenting. He appeared in horror films such as Before I Wake and Shut In , played Peter Carpenter in The Book of Henry , and played Auggie Pullman in Wonder . The latter brought him to a much wider family audience and showed that he could carry a film built around empat...

I was curious about this one, but I expected some sort of psychological analysis, and... honestly, if that's what you're looking for, this isn't your movie. Two Timelines It starts well. We watch the FBI struggle to identify and catch the Unabomber ( Jacob Tremblay ) while following his first years in college, his relationship with his family, and how everything seems to build toward something. He has many issues, and they all seem to feed his paranoia. Meanwhile, the agents are turning on each other, making accusations as they struggle to catch the terrorist. The tension keeps building. Admiration Falls into Humiliation Ted's relationship with the professor (Russell Crowe) is one of the movie's many creative liberties. It's not the worst one, but it leads us toward a simplified explanation of something much bigger and much more complicated. He gets a big shock: he trusted the professor, who made Ted feel special, only to discover he was essentially a study ...

  Mousetrap is one of those shows that is hard to review without getting lost in its own complexity. Identities are stolen, people may or may not be who they claim to be, memories become questionable, and there are enough twists to make you constantly wonder what you are actually watching. Honestly, I found it exhausting to watch. But  something interesting lies beneath all that confusion: what happens to a person when their sense of identity is taken away ? When Your Own Identity Becomes a Question We rarely think about how much of our identity depends on things we simply accept as true. Our name, our memories, our relationships, the people who recognize us, the things we believe we have experienced. But what if we could no longer trust those things? One of the most unsettling questions Mousetrap raises is surprisingly simple: how do you prove that you are you ? The show takes this idea to an extreme, but the psychological fear behind it is very real. A Mind Trying...

  I quickly knew   The Gentlemen  was going to be fun when Eddie's brother threw a tantrum like a 2-year-old  over the inheritance. And honestly, that scene sets the tone rather well. Eddie (Theo James) thinks he has inherited a country estate. What he has actually inherited is a whole world he knows very little about. Welcome to the Family Business Eddie soon discovers his father had a rather unusual source of income, and the family estate suddenly comes with drug operations, criminals, rival businesses, and people very interested in the new heir. One thing I enjoyed was seeing the backstage of the drug business. The show doesn't just give us criminals and drugs; it builds a whole little ecosystem around them, with its own rules, businesses, and personalities. And, of course, Eddie has to learn how to navigate it. (While we laugh.) Freddy Steals the Show Freddy (Daniel Ings) is a character . I absolutely love him. He can make me furious and laugh hard at the sam...

  Janel Parrish is an American actress and singer best known for playing Mona Vanderwaal in Pretty Little Liars and Margot Covey in Netflix’s To All the Boys films. Born in Oahu, Hawaii, in 1988, Parrish began performing at a very young age. At six, she started piano lessons and soon began studying acting, singing, and dance. Her professional career began on stage when she played Young Cosette in Les Misérables , first in the national tour and later on Broadway. She later appeared in television series and films before landing her breakthrough film role as Jade in Bratz in 2007. Best Known For Pretty Little Liars (2010–2017) As Mona Vanderwaal, Parrish became one of the most memorable characters in Pretty Little Liars . Mona's transformation throughout the series gave Parrish the opportunity to play a character who could be vulnerable, manipulative, funny, and threatening, sometimes within the same storyline. The role earned her four Teen Choice Awards for Choice TV Villain. ...