actress drama roundtable

Always love these round-table discussions (especially the actresses).

This one has some heavy hitters: Oprah, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Jessica Lange. And up-and-comers Elisabeth Moss and Chrissy Metz (who has an incredible story).

justin lockwood's favorite entertainment of 2015

I found this to be a pretty tremendous year for pop culture, with many of the most anticipated releases proving worthy of the hype.  Here are my favorites in film, TV, and (first of all) music.

Rebel Heart - Madonna

I’d been waiting a decade for another truly great Madonna album.  American Life, Hard Candy, and MDNA all had their moments, but none were outstanding at the level of Ray of Light or Confessions on a Dance Floor.  With Rebel Heart, Madge finally stopped chasing other people’s trends and did her thing, across a satisfyingly diverse array of 19 (!) songs.  From the propulsive “Living for Love” (her best single since “Hung Up”) to the haunting “Ghosttown” to the awesomely sassy “Bitch I’m Madonna,” Rebel Heart proved the 57-year-old’s still got it.

"American Horror Story"

I’ve loved this show across uneven seasons, and this was a particularly good year for the franchise. "Hotel" took some time winning me over, but wound up being the darkest, most involving and consistently surprising entry since "Asylum" (my all-time favorite).  Lady Gaga is solid, though the ever-dependable Denis O’Hare steals the show and is utterly transcendent as Liz Taylor.  Looking back in the calendar year, the spotty Freak Show came to a hugely satisfying conclusion and provided a fitting coda (!) to Jessica Lange’s work on the series.

Jurassic World

My expectations were high for this sequel to one of my most beloved movies, and director Colin Trevorrow met them and then some.  Sure, the Romancing the Stone leads are a little shopworn, but who cares when the cast is so appealing, the concepts are interesting, and the action is so much fun?

"Scream Queens"

Speaking of fun, TV doesn’t get much more entertaining than this campy horror spoof starring Jamie Lee Curtis (bow down!) and the terrific Emma Roberts.  The show committed to its silliness and central mystery with razor sharp writing and a uniformly awesome ensemble, with Niecy Nash’s security guard and Glen Powell’s dopey frat boy among the standouts.

The Final Girls

A fitting companion piece of sorts to "Scream Queens," The Final Girls is a tremendously enjoyable love letter to 80s dead teenager flicks with real emotional heart.  It’s both hysterically funny and really, truly affecting.

"The Comeback"

I discovered Michael King’s cult favorite "The Comeback" just in time for its triumphant second season, which earned star Lisa Kudrow a well-deserved Emmy nod.  The meta premise seemed a little too high concept: Kudrow’s indomitable Valerie Cherish agrees to play a nasty version of herself, in an edgy series from the producer who tormented her on a would-be comeback vehicle years earlier.  But the season proved immensely affecting, funny, and honest, with a finale that broke with convention in an unexpected but all too appropriate way.

Krampus

Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘R Treat was my favorite horror film of the last decade, so I was intrigued to see his encore.  He returns to the holiday fold with a ferociously entertaining movie that balances frights and laughs with the same deftness as that cult classic.  A strong cast brings a dysfunctional family to life, and the story lurches through gags and creepy set pieces to arrive at a stunning denouement.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I wasn’t chomping at the bit like a hardcore fan, but even if I was I doubt I’d be disappointed in JJ Abrams’ assured addition to the Star Wars canon.  The wunderkind uses his knack for story, humor, and wow! visuals to return George Lucas’ saga to form after the lackluster prequels.  The new characters, notably Daisy Ridley’s plucky Rey and John Boyega’s arresting, conflicted Finn, somehow already feel as timeless as Luke, Han, and Leia.  The importance of the two leads’ race and gender, too, cannot be overstated.  After all, Star Wars is a saga for all of us.

-Justin Lockwood

a look back at 'coven' by justin lockwood

Following the finale of "Coven," the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology American Horror Story, I went back and watched parts of the earlier episodes.  There were some terrific scenes, notably those between Jessica Lange’s devious, self-absorbed Supreme witch Fiona and the other female leads, Angela Bassett’s fact-based voodoo queen Marie Laveau and Kathy Bates’ cruel Madame Delphine LaLaurie, also a historical figure.  Their scenes together crackle with intensity and pathos, fueled by terrific performances from the women involved and sharp writing.  They imply the season’s primary themes: the complicated, fraught relationships between women as their roles have evolved over time, and an unsubtle, powerful dramatization of race relations writ large.  These themes were further developed by stunning set pieces like a torch wielding black mob, led by Marie, lynching LaLaurie’s family and entombing her below the ground and, later, a 1960s youth hung by white men, his death avenged by resurrected Confederate soldiers.

Unfortunately, "Coven" cast its net too widely beyond these potent conflicts, encompassing so many characters and mini-arcs that the central dramas got a bit lost in the shuffle.  Even the season long McGuffin—who would be the next Supreme?—took a back seat at times to diversions like “FrankenKyle,” a good-hearted frat boy turned monster involved in a love triangle with young witches Zoe (Taissa Farmiga) and Madison (a perfectly bitchy Emma Roberts).  Perhaps the best illustration of "Coven's" misguided attempt to do too damn much is its failure to produce an iconic monster in the style of the first two seasons.  While season 1 had Rubber Man and season 2 gave us Bloodyface, "Coven" stumbled by offering us three candidates: the Minotaur LaLaurie created out of Marie’s lover, the reality-based Ax Man of New Orleans (Danny Huston), and the demonic Papa Legba.  The Minotaur was dispatched early on—perhaps a twist meant to keep us guessing, but one which just felt anticlimactic.  Huston’s seductive, powerful work as the Ax Man made him memorable, but the series didn’t seem to know quite what to do with him.  Was he the love of Fiona’s life?  A mere pawn in the war between witches and their hunters, and Fiona and the witches themselves?  His ending with Fiona—apparently for her, Hell is domesticity with one dude—didn’t really make sense.  Both Fiona, who wreaked endless havoc in her life, and the Ax Man, who was all too happy to be stuck with Fiona for all time, seemingly deserved far worse than their fates.  Meanwhile, Legba was certainly striking, smoothly portrayed by Lance Reddick in creepy makeup and costume, but he should have been more prominent in the final episodes.  Instead, he, too, was shouldered aside by the wrapping up of countless loose threads like that FrankenKyle triangle.  (Spoiler alert: the doomed end of Farmiga and Peters’ relationship in season one was infinitely more satisfying than this season’s ho-hum happy ending.)

By the end, "Coven" was apparently intended as the story of two women: Fiona and her daughter Cordelia (Sarah Paulson).  LaLaurie and Marie met their fates in the second to last episode, fittingly trapped in an eternity of vengeance against each other in a Legba designed Hell.  The last episode focuses on the reality-TV like “Seven Wonders” challenge for the Supremacy.  Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), after navigating a minefield of racial and sexual (dig that Minotaur seduction scene!) politics, ends up second in command to a white lady.  Zoe meets the same fate, after escaping an Emo sounding Hell of endless breakups with her undead boy toy. (Really, guys?  That’s her Hell?  Snooze.)  Then there’s Misty, the awesome Stevie Nicks loving Swamp Witch who seemed like an early favorite for Supreme.  She gets… condemned to a Hell in which she’s a tormented freak endlessly killing and resurrecting a frog in science class.  This one was a real head scratcher.  Misty was the least deserving of such an awful fate, having killed no one and resurrected half the cast with her benevolent magic. Apparently it was meant to be tragic irony, but to quote every college Fiction Writing class ever, It Didn’t Feel Earned.  By the end, Fiona re-emerges, ravaged by cancer and confronting the daughter she never knew how to love, who’s been named Supreme and encourages her mom to at long last accept her own mortality.  It’s a fitting end for both women—and a nice counterpoint to the Asylum finale, in which Paulson was the mom putting her insane son out of his personal misery—but it should have been supported by a season’s worth of narrower focus on both story arcs.  Paulson had her bad ass moments— mainly both times she was blind—and Lange had her share of juicy scenes, but this was more testament to the talent of the actresses than to the material itself.  As Lana and Sister Jude, respectively, Paulson and Lange emerged as the dark, transformed hearts of the sensational Asylum, evolving in ways that felt organic and well thought out.  To trace their character arcs in "Coven," one has to gleam on to bits and pieces scattered amidst mountains of speed plotting, crazy characters, and shock value. (Regarding Patti Lupone’s fundamentalist mom, Mare Winningham’s incestuous one, and about a dozen other odds and ends—um, what the heck was that all about?) For next season, which has a 1950s setting that sounds quite promising, I encourage Murphy to focus less on an endless supply of nuttiness and more on just a few killer characters and themes.  Your repertory company of kick ass women (and men) will make it more than worth our while without so many bells and whistles.


-Justin Lockwood

blue sky

In the wake of the BP oil disaster, Tony Richardson's (the Tom Jones director's final film) Blue Sky does have a certain poignancy today. When late 1950s military housewife Carly Marshall (Jessica Lange's Oscar-winning performance) visits a family near a bomb testing site to warn them, they tell her that they've been assured by the military that everything is safe.

Unfortunately the film is weakened by a lack of plot development and a curious flatness. Most of the story is about the rocky relationship between the unbridled Carly and her straight arrow General husband Henry (Tommy Lee Jones) once they move to a base in Alabama. They bicker and have wild fights, mostly caused by Carly's extreme emotions. Their two surprisingly even-keeled daughters endure the drama of their parents until one of them catches Carly sleeping with Henry's boss, Col. Johnson (Powers Boothe). In an attempt to separate the couple, Johnson dispatches Henry to a remote weapons testing site dubbed "Blue Sky." More drama ensues and Carly suddenly feels impassioned enough about her husband to take matters in her own hands.

Most of the film's strength comes from the performances. Lange, oftentimes going in unpredictable directions, gives us a brassy, larger-than-life heroine in an old fashioned turn that recalls the best of Elizabeth Taylor (one of Carly's idols). She is well-matched by Tommy Lee Jones, who gives a performance that's quiet and studied (just watch the way he asks Johnson to "come here" in a fist fight). The daughters too are perfectly cast and winning, especially an excellent Amy Locane.

The film unfortunately doesn't quite come together. Carly's attempts to thwart "Blue Sky" are too far-fetched to have emotional resonance. At the end, it strives for closure but we are back to where we started, with a seemingly happy matriarch just donning a new hair color. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg