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...

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 ...

  I started watching Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart because I knew it had a happy ending. I thought that knowing Elizabeth was found alive would make the story easier to bear — even hopeful. In a world where so many kidnapping cases end in tragedy, this felt like a reminder that sometimes children do come back. But that sense of comfort didn’t last long. Instead of hope, the documentary left me deeply disturbed, sad, and honestly paranoid. I watched it at night, and afterward all I wanted to do was go into my kids’ rooms, pick them up, and bring them into bed with me. It’s the kind of documentary that crawls under your skin and stays there. A Family’s Living Nightmare One of the most unbearable aspects of this story is imagining the pain Elizabeth’s family endured. How do you continue with daily life when you don’t know where your daughter is? If she’s alive. If she’s being hurt. If she’s cold, hungry, scared. Your mind must be a nonstop horror movie, running through endless scena...

  Tremembé may not be a standout masterpiece, but it is undeniably intriguing.  Set in Brazil’s most famous prison for high-profile criminals, the series explores what happens after the media spectacle dies down.  By shifting the focus from the crime itself to life behind bars, the show taps into a kind of curiosity that’s hard to ignore—especially when the criminals involved are already deeply embedded in the public imagination. Two Sides of the Same Crime One of the series’ strongest choices is its constant movement between the women’s and men’s wings of the prison. This structure becomes especially effective when crimes were committed by groups involving both men and women.  Watching how responsibility, guilt, and power dynamics play out differently on each side adds layers to the narrative. In that sense, Tremembé feels closer to slow-burn prison dramas than to sensational true-crime shows—it observes rather than accuses. Performances That Humanize the “Mon...

You start the show with an "Awwww, these animals are so cute!" and later, you realize how bad all this is, and end up with tears in your eyes. Full of surprises,  Tiger King  is about a bizarre yet charismatic man who keeps a private zoo full of big cats.  An eccentric? Maybe, but there is more. And it's not pretty. They start the show by demonstrating his charisma and power. They introduce him as he would want, and then they dig under the surface. Joe Exotic has a lot to tell.   Absolute madness The first episode seems like a guidebook about the world of private zoos and Joe. It introduces us to his paranoid personality and his open war with Carole Baskin. This woman seems to have two missions in life: protect wild cats, and destroy Joe Exotic. I loathed her. The way she laughs in the most inappropriate situations disturbs me. For example, when she is asked about her husband's disappearance. It is disgusting. What the hell is she t...

Freud is a bizarre Austrian-German show about the beginning of Sigmund Freud's career. It puts a young Sigmund Freud in the middle of a social-political conspiracy. Were you expecting a biography? Sorry to disappoint you. The main idea is, no doubt, weird. I'm not exactly sure about what I saw there. Only in the last couple of episodes, you can make some sense of a few things. A FEW. Entrance I could not ignore the entrance of the show as it is one of the best things about it. It is very curious. If you pay attention, Freud's (Robert Finster) bust changes at each episode. Each change represents the different topics or issues approached — the integration and disintegration of the self, so crucial in Freud's theory.   Mysticism Everything seems fine until the story begins. It is not about psychology - not as we understand it - but rather about mysticism. It is focused on local folklore, mystical stories, and supernatural beings.  The main p...

When I finish watching a show, I always try to think of the first couple of words that come to my mind about it. Those are usually a perfect sample of what the show meant to me. In this case, this was extremely easy: revolting.  The show is about a girl, Marie (Kaitlyn Dever), with a foster care system past, who claims to have been raped. It all begins with her describing to the police, and later to hospital staff, what happened to her. I’m not sure of how many times, but I would say around 5. Five times, remembering all the details of her traumatizing experience. The cold environment, the repetition, the constant amount of tests without a kind word to Marie, it's so cruel. While you see Marie being interrogated, examined, and photographed, you understand why most victims do not report. What came to my mind was: the criminal has rights, but how about the victim’s rights? Is it true? The investigation starts, and the feeling of discomfort grows. The polic...

I hadn’t watched the first season of American Crime Story . Never felt very interested in the show, and the only reason I watched this most recent season was that it was about Versace .   I was very intrigued by the show because I remember the case, which was thoroughly covered by the media at the time. So I decided I’d give the show a try. Who's the True Protagonist? I didn’t know a lot about Versace’s life. Almost nothing, really, so I can’t truly criticize the choices by the production when it came to the story. However, I have a problem with the title.  It may have been better not to call it “the assassination of Versace”, but rather “Versace’s killer” as the protagonist is not the designer but rather his killer, and this wasn’t exactly what most people seemed to expect going in. This was also the case for me, and I must admit I got a bit disappointed. Slow Pace The show is good enough to make you curious and keep you watching it, but it isn’t all...

Maddie’s disappearance was probably the biggest case of this sort in Portugal, ever. A highly controversial issue with a significant impact on public opinion in one of the safest countries in the world.  Many things were said about it, and many doubts and suspicions remain in our minds, to this very day, about what really happened to little Maddie. It Leads You Where It Wants The way this documentary was made is very clever. Follow along step by step throughout the investigation, and you will change your opinion and suspicions as each piece of evidence comes to light.  You might be overwhelmed with many different feelings, and no matter your initial opinion about the case, you’ll feel doubt start to creep up as you watch each episode. Cultural Differences It’s very interesting the way different people, from different countries, face each detail and the cultural differences that might seem like nothing on most regular occasions, might be huge under such com...

Domestic violence in all its forms is kind of the subject ‘of the hour’ in my country due to a series of unbelievable court decisions regarding it and cases involving it. Maybe because of that, I had some sort of expectations about this show that weren’t totally fulfilled by what it’s really about. It Didn't Convince Me From what I saw, the show wasn’t very entertaining because it was too slow. Debra ( Connie Britton - You can also watch her at 911 and Zero Day ) was a tedious, monotonous character, and John - Eric Bana ( Untamed ) - wasn’t very convincing as a villain.  As I hadn’t heard of this particular case before, it was only by the end of the first episode that I knew it was based on real facts and people, but that just made the whole thing seem… even more shallow. On Purpose? After a couple of episodes, however, I realized that some of that vibe, of that feeling it was evoking, how fake it all seemed, might all be on purpose. T His apparent ‘not-so-grea...