The Outsider: HBO Adapts Stephen King

DNA evidence has been widely hailed as a tool to exonerate the wrongly convicted. However, in Terry Maitland’s case, it falsely implicates him in a horrific child murder. He will need someone who can think way outside the box to prove his innocence. Holly Gibney from the Mr. Mercedes books and TV series is certainly an unconventional investigator. She sees things others miss, so she might be the perfect detective to stalk the real killer in The Outsider, Richard Price’s 10-part adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, which premieres this Sunday on HBO.

Terry Maitland is a well-liked teacher and coach in his quiet, working-class Oklahoma community, until Det. Ralph Anderson has him arrested and cuffed during one of his little league games for the murder of eleven-year-old Frank Peterson. There is ironclad DNA and eye-witness testimony linking Maitland to the crime scene, but his lawyer, Howie Gold, quickly uncovers physical evidence and video footage placing him in another city at the time of the murder.

It is all quite baffling to everyone, so Gold retains Gibney’s specialized services. Feeling guilty for turning the town against the Maitland family, Det. Anderson joins Gold’s investigation team while on leave from the department. He is not inclined to believe the fantastical, even when Gibney uncovers a string of similar child murders attributed to suspects still proclaiming their innocence, due to similarly conflicting DNA evidence and eye-witness statements. However, his wife Jeannie is more willing to reserve judgment and keep an open mind. She too joins Gold’s kitchen cabinet, after forging a sympathetic understanding with Maitland’s wife, Marcy.

Based on the first six episodes provided to the press (out of ten), it should be safe to say the serial killer at work boasts some sort of supernatural shape-and-DNA-shifting powers—and that shouldn’t be particularly spoilery, since it is a creation of Stephen King. However, the series unfolds with the style and drive of a procedural mystery. Indeed, comparisons to HBO’s True Detective are rather apt. Yet, Price fully capitalizes on the existential implications of a monster that (perhaps literally) feeds on human alienation and misery. These are especially damaged characters, even by the standards of King’s oeuvre.

Jason Bateman’s earnest everyman portrayal of Maitland easily convinces viewers to buy into the character’s predicament, sort of like Henry Fonda in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man taking a detour through the X-Files. Yet, perhaps more importantly, he effectively sets the vibe of mounting dread as the director of the first two episodes. However, Ben Mendelsohn surpasses him when it comes to projecting world-weary angst as Det. Anderson, whose every decision is influenced by the prior death of his own young son.

The Outsider also earns credit for featuring three women characters, who transcend stereotypes and become of equal or greater importance to the story than Maitland or even Anderson. Cynthia Erivo never resorts to cheap ticks or shtick in her endlessly intriguing portrayal of the on-the-spectrum Gibney (radically different from Justine Lupe’s depiction in the Mr. Mercedes series). It showcases her brilliance, a la Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, but also emphasizes her acute vulnerability. Yet, Price also empowers her as a woman, who haltingly explores the possibility of romance with a former law enforcement contact, nicely played by Derek Cecil.

Likewise, Mare Winningham and Julianne Nicholson are consistently devastating as Jeannie Anderson and Marcy Maitland, respectively—two women ironically united in grief. Each woman displays unexpected agency, beyond merely standing by their men. In fact, Nicholson could arguably be considered the Outsider’s lead and central POV figure.

Unmasking Jihadi John

With all respects to the movie Yesterday, the world would have been a much better place without these certain Beatles—namely the quartet of Daesh terrorists dubbed “The Beatles” by their Western hostages, because of their British accents. By far, the most notorious was the one referred to as “Jihadi John” in the media, because he is the one who committed the atrocities in the infamous beheading videos. There is plenty of biographical detail, but all the really difficult questions are skirted in Anthony Wonke’s Unmasking Jihadi John: Anatomy of a Terrorist, which premieres this Wednesday on HBO.

Mohammed Emwazi was born in Kuwait, but his family soon immigrated to London to escape tribal oppression. During his early school days, he was a shy Manchester United fan, but he turned more delinquent in his teen years. Inevitably, radical Islam offered a worldview that excused him of all responsibility, making him the poor victim.

Emwazi’s terrorist sympathies were no secret to the British authorities. In fact, they intercepted him during his first attempt to wage jihad in Iraq. Much is made of this episode, during which time a British intelligence officer tried to turn him into an asset. Wonke and screenwriter Richard Kerbaj are determined to frame this as a tipping point, pushing him into radicalism, but this seems to rather overstate matters, since he was already determined to commit acts of terrorism against his former country.

Regardless, he would indeed enlist with Daesh (Wonke and Kerbaj refer to it by the terrorists’ preferred term, ISIS), just as it was emerging as the successor to Al-Qaeda among the hearts and minds of violent Islamists. Eventually, he and three other British born terrorist-traitors took a leading role holding and eventually executing a group of Western hostages, including James Foley.

As we know from the horrific footage, it was Emwazi who slit their throats on camera. Clearly, he was chosen for the job precisely because of his London accent. It did indeed create a firestorm, but Wonke and Kerbaj try to present it purely in terms of sensationalistic journalism and the disbelief that one of our Britain’s own could turn on his own country.

They completely ignore the wider point about what the Emwazi case says about radical Islam. He was not oppressed by Israel or brutalized in a refugee camp. He didn’t even suffer from long bouts of unemployment. Instead, his history suggests there is something intrinsically violent and anti-social in his Islamist world view. Right, Wonke and Kerbaj would rather have us move along, wanting us to think there is nothing to see here.

There is still some informative dot-connecting with respects to Daesh’s operations, but that is nuts and bolts stuff, rather than deep insights. Frankly, the film almost could pass for an effort to forestall such in-depth analysis, despite the participation of experts, including the unexpected presence of Gen. David Patraeus. Somewhat disappointing, Unmasking Jihadi John need not be considered required viewing when it premieres Wednesday (7/31) on HBO.

Miss Sherlock: HBO Asia’s First Japanese Original

There have been Japanese Holmesian figures before, like Detective Conan, but there has never been a consulting detective at #221B who was this stylish. She might also be the brusquest and rudest Sherlock ever. She makes Cumberbatch’s Holmes look like Alan Alda in his whiny, in-touch-with-his-feelings 1970s prime. Of course, that is also why she is so much fun to watch, but her new roommate finds her dashed difficult to live with. That would be Dr. Wato Tachibana, or Wato-san. You had better believe the games afoot in Miss Sherlock, the first production of HBO Asia made available on HBO Go and HBO Now, starting today.

A rough stint volunteering in Syria with a Doctors Without Borders NGO already had Dr. Tachibana questioning her choice of a medical career. Then her mentor Takashi Mizuno is assassinated right before her eyes with some sort of internal explosion. As he is apt to do with a case of any degree of complexity, Inspector Gentaro Reimon summons a consulting detective known simply as Sherlock (a name that everyone finds utterly baffling).

Naturally, Tachibana is appalled by her insensitive treatment of Mizuno’s widow. Yet, the circumstances of the case keep bringing them together. In fact, when Tachibana’s hotel is mysteriously leveled by an explosion, Sherlock’s brother Kento Futaba somewhat impishly invites her to move in with his sister. Why yes, he holds a very hush-hush position within the government. However, he and Sherlock get along better than Mycroft ever did with the Victorian Holmes (one of many tweaks in Miss Sherlock that works quite well).

During the first six episodes, Sherlock and Wato-san investigate mysteries that are mostly separate and discrete, but still seem to share an obscure connection to some sort of hazy criminal cabal. Arguably, the best mysteries involve an apparent incident of vampirism and the disappearance of a newlywed bride, but they are all pretty strong and consistent. However, episodes seven and eight, dive full on into the conspiracy in an overt homage to The Final Problem, the only original Holmes mystery Miss Sherlock explicitly riffs on.

Miss Sherlock has a terrific cast, including many faces fans of Japanese cinema will recognize. Yuko Takeuchi (Creepy, Magnificent Nine) is an absolute blast playing Sherlock, as long as you do not have to live with her. She can out do Cumberbatch’s verbal calculations, while rocking Hermes overcoats. Shihori Kanjiya (Vancouver Asahi, Golden Slumber) provides a resonant humanist center and general rooting interest as Wato-san. Believe it or not, Kenichi (The Inerasable, Unforgiven) Takito’s Inspector Reimon could very well become many fans’ favorite Lestrade. Regardless, he delivers the character’s most redemptive incarnation perhaps ever, even more so than Rupert Graves opposite Cumberbatch.

Yukiyoshi Ozawa (The Forest, Rurouni Kenshin 2 & 3) deserves similar credit for the verve he brings to Futaba, the Mycroft analog, somewhat humanizing him, but adding a bit of roguish attitude. The Moriarty figure is also terrific, but it would be telling to call said mystery person out—even though most fans will be trained to recognize who that might be rather early on. The caliber of the episodic guest stars is also quite high, especially Mahiru Konno and Haruka Kinami, who play Arisa and Yuma Shiina, two dysfunctional sisters embroiled in a plot to steal a potentially lethal chemical compound (and look out for Rinko Kikuchi in episode seven).

The battery of screenwriters does a nice job of modernizing and culturally adapting Conan Doyle, without becoming slavishly beholden to the source material. Yet, they still channel enough of the original spirit to keep fans happy. They also raise the stakes higher than just about any other Holmes homage. Plus, Ken’ichiro Suehiro’s distinctive music amplifies the tension and helps give the series its own identity. There is no question, the series borrows elements from the Cumberbatch Sherlock and Elementary, but Takeuchi makes them her own. Enthusiastically recommended for all Holmesians/Sherlockians as well as fans of Japanese mysteries, Miss Sherlock is now available on HBO Now and HBO Go.

Fahrenheit 451 (2018)

If for no other reason, HBO’s remake of Fahrenheit 451 stakes a claim on history, because it gives Keir Dullea bragging rights as perhaps the only actor to appear in films based on the work of both Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Unfortunately, this adaptation is far too concerned with being “timely” and “relevant,” thereby limiting its long-term significance. Bradbury’s anti-censorship message is perhaps more needed now than in 1953 when he wrote his classic novel, but it doesn’t come through in an urgent, principled way in Ramin Bahrani’s Fahrenheit 451 (trailer here), co-adapted with the great expat Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi, which premieres this Saturday on HBO.

Guy Montag is a fireman, just like mentor, Captain Beatty. As you should know, that means they set fire to banned books (pretty much all of them), rather than extinguishing accidental fires (come to think of it, wouldn’t they still need old-fashioned firemen in a dystopian world?). Montag has never really thought about the implications of his work, except maybe when a repressed incident from his childhood resurfaces in his memory. However, an encounter with Clarisse McClellan, one of Beatty’s reluctant sources, starts churning up vague doubts. Not long after, he secretly takes home a contraband book, Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. With McClellan’s help, the book spurs Montag to start thinking for himself, perhaps for the first time.

Montag is further haunted by the horrifying sight of an old fashioned “Eel,” who opts to self-immolate rather than abandon her books. In a significant departure from Bradbury (and Truffaut), she also happens to utter a word she really shouldn’t have, because it gives the Firemen a clue as to a game-changing book-preservation initiative the dissident underground has concocted. (As an aside, Montag’s media-anaesthetized wife Millie was cast, but later cut from the final film, which seems like a rather Orwellian act to make such a major character disappear without a trace.)

Without question, the greatest misstep of this Fahrenheit is the attempt to update the near dystopia with elements of internet culture and reality TV that will be familiar to contemporary viewers. However, this just distracts more than it enhances the films credibility. It’s a constant source of business undercutting the starkness of Bradbury’s original vision. Bahrani and Naderi also ash-can the background drumbeat of impending war, which explained why all these thought police regulations were implemented in the first place.

Still, the ever-reliable Michael Shannon is quite intriguing and compulsively watchable, playing the hard-nosed Beatty, who has his own secret print vices. In contrast, Michael B. Jordan is rather inert and inexpressive as Montag, the Fireman supposedly wrestling with his conscience and doubts. Nor is there much chemistry between him and Sofia Boutella’s McClellan. However, Dullea adds a note of integrity as the learned “Historian,” who is also involved in the book-preserving underground. That really was perfect casting.

Fahrenheit just doesn’t hold together as a persuasive cautionary vision, which is a shame, because we could use a good version about now. Quite problematically, it plays ideological favorites with the books we see burning. You will not find any conservative classics like Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom in the Firemen’s bonfires, but it is hard to think of a book that would be less acceptable to the dystopian powers-that-be. In fact, it rather mixes the message when one of the underground “Book People” is introduced as “Chairman Mao” because she memorized the Little Red Book—yet you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in history who did more to censor and eradicate books than Mao Zedong. Sadly, the film never really drives home the point that we should apply the 1^st Amendment most to books and articles that we do not agree with, or else we risk adulterating our own constitutional protections. A major disappointment, Fahrenheit 451 premieres this Saturday (5/19), on HBO.

HBO Short Film: Tokyo Project

Tokyo—it is the hip place for Americans to go to be moody and depressed. Unlike Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, Sebastian the Brooklyn businessman appreciates Japanese culture, both high and pop. It would just be nice if he had someone to share it with. Claire the freelance photographer might be a good candidate, but like him, she seems to carry a deep sadness on her shoulders in Richard Shepard’s short film Tokyo Project (trailer here), which premieres this Saturday night on HBO.

We quickly glean from the voice messages Sebastian leaves, his wife will not be joining him on this trip, due to an unspoken tragedy she has yet to allow herself to recover from. As a result, Sebastian’s tour of Shinjuku sake bars and ramen restaurants takes on a melancholy vibe. The huge neon signs and chaotic Shibuya scramble crossing could dwarf any man, but he looks especially small. Still, he cannot help noticing Claire, another American staying at his hotel, with whom he has a series of near-encounters.

At first, she discourages his advances, but the frequency of their paths crossing wears down her reluctance. Half-jokingly, she claims to be a ghost, but that could actually be true metaphorically. Regardless, finding solace in each other’s arms might not be as simple as viewers might like to think.

If only a fraction of HBO’s subscribers watch Shepard’s film, it will still greatly boost Tokyo tourism, no matter how they feel about Project as a work of short cinema. Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens (whose work includes Hell or High Water) feasts on the mega-cityscape. Sometimes he makes the city feel warm and sometimes cool, but it is always visually arresting.

Tokyo Project also happens to be a surprisingly touching narrative drama. Yes, Lena Dunham signed on as an executive producer, but do not hold that against it. Both Ebon Moss-Bachrach (co-star of Dunham’s Girls and the radically different Punisher coming from Netflix) and Elisabeth Moss convey a powerful sense of their characters’ pain and regret, but they do so with quiet restraint. Shusaku Kakizawa gives surprising depth and presence to the potentially thankless helper role of Sebastian’s translator Shu, which fortunately establishes at least a bit of Japanese representation in a film set in Japan.

Shepard keeps his big reveal close to his vest, but the viewing experience does not really hinge on it, so it hardly matters if viewers guess where his screenplay is headed. It is also a nice change of pace to see a film about American tourists who conduct themselves appropriately while abroad. Recommended for those who appreciate adult relationship dramas and anyone interested in an armchair tour of the Japanese capital, Tokyo Project airs this Saturday night (10/14) on HBO.

Brillo Box (3¢ off): Art, Investment, Commodity, Cultural Icon, Whichever

The producer of the definitive Andy Warhol documentary rightly observes the world has become vastly more Warholian since his death in 1987. Perhaps none of his pieces are more fundamentally Warholian than the Brillo Boxes—so-called because they faithfully copied the design of the Brillo Box cartons you could have found in the backroom of any supermarket in the 1960s. Warhol made a fair number of the big white Brillo Boxes, but only seventeen of the smaller, yellow “3¢ off” version. Lisanne Skyler’s family had one, but they parted with it before the Warhol market exploded. Skyler traces the box’s journey and explains its significance in the short (forty-minute) documentary, Brillo Box (3¢ off) (trailer here), which premieres this Monday on HBO.

The Skyler Brillo Box is a mysterious object of family lore that appears in their early photos, like a Rosebud sled for the entire family. To his credit, her father really got Warhol long before the general art world did. Her mother did as well, accept maybe even more so. She genuinely enjoyed having it around as an object in their apartment, but at that time he was constantly trying to flip his acquisitions or trade up to something with more long-term value. Much to her mother’s regret, he parted with the Brillo Box to acquire an original Peter Young.

For years, this looked like a rather bad trade, but Skyler archly observes the recent renewal of interest in the rediscovered Young’s work makes it less cut-and-dried. Still, it would be hard to top the staggering sum the Skyler family Brillo Box last fetched at auction.

On one level, 3¢ off is a brisk and colorful exploration of the intersection of family history and art history. However, Skyler quite slyly demonstrates the porousness of the boundaries between art, investment, commodity, and tongue-in-cheek provocation in the contemporary art world. The case study of the Brillo Box is particularly ironic, because it involves an artist (Warhol) appropriating a commercial design, created by abstract expressionist James Harvey as a day gig, to make a statement on commercialism, but the boxes themselves have become high-priced quest items for fabulously wealthy collectors. It is like Warhol’s joke continues to take on new dimensions.

Skyler fully analyzes the ironic cultural significance of the Brillo Boxes, but the film is also surprisingly poignant when she explores the 3¢ off Box’s significance to her family. It came into their possession at a very particular time in their history, for which her now divorced parents clearly look back on with great nostalgia. It is a sweet film, but it also gives viewers some sharp insights into the exclusive gallery industry, making it a good companion film to Barry Avrich’s documentary feature Blurred Lines and Tom Wolfe’s subversively droll critical-essay, The Painted Word. Enthusiastically recommended, Brillo Box (3¢ off) airs this Monday (8/7) on HBO.

Every Brilliant Thing: Finding Laughter in Depression

Depression is a serious medical condition and potentially a life-threatening illness. At a time when sore-losers throwing temper tantrums claim to be suffering from depression because an election did not turn out as they hoped, playwright Duncan Macmillan and comedian Jonny Donahue remind us what depression really means. Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato document Donahue performing Macmillan’s sort of one-man show during live 2015 performances at the Off-Broadway Barrow Street Theatre in Every Brilliant Thing (trailer here), which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Playing Macmillan’s narrator rather than exposing the darkest nights of his own soul, Donahue will milk the comedy from ripe topics like the death of a beloved childhood pet, his mother’s initial suicide attempt, and her ultimate suicide ten years later. Obviously, this is tough stuff for a kid to process, but the young protagonist hoped to convince his mother to choose life by amassing a list of brilliant, life-affirming things that were too good to miss out on. Some are kids’ stuff, like “ice cream” and others are clichés, such as “falling in love” and “surprises,” but that does not mean they do not have value, especially in the context of their compilation.

Apparently, the boy’s list was lost on his mother, despite his attempts to push it on her. However, it holds therapeutic value for him as he grapples with the ripple effects of his mother’s acute depression. It even helps him relate to the understanding college girlfriend he would ultimately marry. Unfortunately, Donahue’s stage persona eventually becomes alienated from his now mammoth list, slipping into his own pernicious morass of depression.

Sounds like funny material, right? Yet, somehow it is. Sort of like vintage Gleason, Donahue earns a lot of laughs from reaction shots when he impresses unsuspecting audience members into service, playing his gruff but well-meaning father, the compassionate veterinarian who euthanized his dear Sherlock Bones, and his forgiving [ex-]wife. He also distributes numerous brilliant things throughout the audience, to be recited on cue. Despite all the audience participation, Bailey & Barbato translate the show rather remarkably well to the small screen.

The last thing Macmillan and Donahue ever suggest is that there are any easy answers for families struggling with depression-related issues. Really, the whole point of the show is to emphasize how difficult but not uncommon it is to face such tribulations, especially if they do not seek professional help—without ever coming across like a public service announcement.

In fact, there is an awful lot of wit in EBT, coming from both Macmillan and Donahue. The playwright also has great taste in music, making the narrator’s father a jazz fan, whose LP collection includes Albert Ayler, a tragic case of presumed suicide. He also throws in some knowing bits about the pleasures of record collecting, which gives the narrative even greater resonance.

The running time clocks in just over an hour, but when EBT wraps, we feel like we have lived through the narrator’s stormy life with him. Throughout it all, Donahue commands the stage and our attention. Based on his star turn, you might expect him to become something like the next Mike Birbiglia. Highly recommended for general audiences, Every Brilliant Thing airs on HBO this coming Monday (12/26), very definitely scheduled with the holidays in mind.

Patria o Muerte: The Fatherland, as it is

If there is one country that has less faith in the Communist Party than China, it would have to be Cuba. They have all of the social inequities associated with China’s extreme income disparity, but the exploitation is seemingly reserved exclusively for foreign tourists. Of course, it is not like Cubans haven’t had revolutionary theory explained to them. For decades, they have endured Fidel Castro’s interminable speeches. Those diatribes produced the hollow slogan adopted as the ironic title of Olatz López Garmendia’s revealing documentary Patria o Muerte: Cuba, Fatherland or Death (trailer here), executive produced by Julian Schnabel, which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Strictly speaking, Garmendia (second wife of Schnabel, who directed her in Before Night Falls) takes the observational approach, observing many average Havanans in their homes and listening to their complaints. However, her desperately poor subjects have so much to say and their situations are so precarious, the film never feels like a Wisemanesque fly-on-the-wall experience. Very few of them even bothers talking about freedom anymore. That is long gone. Their thoughts are solely concerned with day-to-day, hour-to-hour survival.

We meet Mercedes, whose family risks their lives every day just by living in their (literally) crumbling building. They know it is only a matter of time before it collapses (her son was already hospitalized by a floor cave-in), but they have no other place to go. A thirty-eight-year-old street vendor would understand. He says he feels like a teenager because he still lives with his parents, but there is no chance he could find or afford his own apartment given his circumstances.

Occasionally, some Havanans express frustration with the lack of intellectual and artistic freedom, such as Yoani Sanchez and Renaldo Escobar, dissident bloggers in a country that forbids the internet. However, for average Cubans, it is more a matter of being denied one of the most convenient tools of the Twenty-First Century.

Anyone who stills thinks Obama’s overtures to the Castro regime will materially improve their lot should be quickly disabused by the work of Garmendia and her crew, particularly cinematographer Claudio Fuentes Madan, who is seen getting arrested (violently) for protesting on the day of Obama’s state visit. He also does nice work behind the camera, evocatively framing each interviewee and their [barely]-living spaces. Through his lens, we get a visceral sense of just how oppressive life in Cuba really is—for all but the Party pinnacle of privilege.

Patria o Muerte does not white-wash or sugar coat any of its subjects’ reality. Yet, it is not a spirit-crushing viewing experience, in part due to its eclectic but very upbeat Cuban soundtrack (even including old school Benny More). It just serves up one harsh dose of truth after another, but it washes it down with some rich Afro-Cuban derived or inspired rhythms. In fact, there is an elusive, haunted and decrepit beauty to the city and its people that comes out clearly in every frame of the one-hour film. Very highly recommended, Patria o Muerte: Cuba, Fatherland or Death debuts this coming Monday (11/28) and hits HBO On Demand the next day.

Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks—were only the Beginning

The scariest thing about the Nice truck attack is the nonchalance of the subsequent media coverage. By July 2016, terrorist attacks in France had become no big deal, thanks to the horrific events of 2015, their Annus horribilis. This is where it started. With the help of riveting survivors’ testimony, Dan Reed documents the campaign of terror step-by-step in Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo, which premieres tomorrow night on HBO.

Evidently, Mohammad was no match for an unruly satirical magazine with a penchant for alienating its own leftwing supporters. To assuage the Prophet’s hurt feelings over a few caricatures, the world’s jihadists put Charlie Hebdo in their crosshairs. Having survived a 2011 firebombing, the staff relocated to more secure, unmarked offices. Unfortunately, they were not secret and secure enough.

Arguably, the Smithsonian Channel’s Paris Terror Attacks does as good a job or better explaining the chain of fateful events. The new stuff Reed brings to the table are eye-witness accounts from the magazine’s neighbors and several of the high-ranking police officers who managed the response. 3 Days puts many of the familiar images of the attack in context, explaining who shot them and from what vantage point. Easily the most compelling interview sequence features television producer Martin Boudot, whose offices were across the hall from the magazine. Instead of warning his neighbors, Boudot called the police and barricaded his door. It is an understandable defensive response, but he now deeply regrets not proactively warning the Charlie Hebdo staff.

While the Kouachi brothers were terrorizing Charlie Hebdo and making their last stand in Dammartin, their former cellmate Amedy Coulibaly commenced the Hypercacher kosher market hostage crisis. Reed largely skips over the Dijon and Nantes vehicular attacks, which were considered wildcat actions, but clearly prefigured the Nice terror truck incident. Thanks to eye witness accounts, 3 Days gives viewers a sense of how ruthlessly cold-blooded Coulibaly was as he went about his lethal business.

The January 2015 terrorist crisis had profoundly tragic consequences, especially for Charlie Hebdo and the Parisian Jewish community, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. It is important that we study the events in question to better prepare for future attacks. Yet, some of the significance of the attacks has largely gone unnoted. The Kouachis and Coulibaly were not just native French born terrorists. The brothers were linked to Al Qaeda’s Yemen division, while Coulibaly professed allegiance to ISIS, yet they were reportedly in communication with each other during their respective attacks and claimed to have coordinated their efforts. The prospect of Al Qaeda and ISIS working together is almost too frightening for counter-terror officials to contemplate, yet perhaps it already happened at a grassroots-cell-to-cell level.

Regardless, Three Days of Terror clearly establishes the facts of the French terror atrocities without any political correct hand-wringing. It is a necessary chronicle that every engaged citizen should understand in detail. Highly recommended, especially for everyone who missed the Smithsonian Channel’s report, Three Days of Terror airs tomorrow (9/19) on HBO.

Tashi and the Monk: A Problem Child in Tibetan Buddhist Orphanage

Lobsang Phunstok is sort of the Father Flanagan of Tibetan Buddhism. At the foot of the Indian Himalayas, he founded Jamtse Gatsal, or “The Garden of Love and Compassion,” an orphanage and school for abandoned children. He might be a former Buddhist monk, but he has the patience of a saint when it comes to difficult children like Tashi Drolma. However, you have to feel for the five year old, considering how much she has already faced up to in her young life. Lobsang Phunstok and his staff will help her find her place in Jamtse Gatsal and start to heal her trauma in Andrew Hinton & Johnny Burke’s Tashi and the Monk (trailer here), which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Drolma’s alcoholic father abandoned her sometime after her mother died at a tragically young age. That is more than any kid should have to deal with, so it is hardly surprising her behavior tends towards the aggressive. There is no question she is disruptive, but when you hear her make-up revealing stories about little girls just like her that are haunted by ghosts, it is easy to see she is hurting. Lobsang Phunstok understands only too well. He was also abandoned during childhood. That is why he will not give up on a trouble-maker like Drolma, even while he wrestles with difficult administrative dilemmas, especially his admissions process.

Clocking in well under an hour, T&M is comparatively brief, but it pummels viewers’ heartstrings. The disarmingly innocent looking Drolma will activate every protective instinct the audience might have, so it is rewarding to see her finally settle in, thanks in large measure to Raju, her “big brother.” However, the film also makes it painfully clear the good monk simply cannot save every child in need, showing us the tragic consequences for one child he was unable to admit.

We often think of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries as exotic places of spiritual sequestration. In contrast, T&M and Frederick Marx’s Journey to Zanskar paint a dynamic portrait of Tibet Buddhism as an activist faith, very much engaged with the welfare of the young and desperately disadvantaged. Both documentaries capture deeply moving human stories, while acting as a corrective to Lost Horizon-style exoticism.

After watching T&M for forty-some minutes, you will ardently care about what happens to both Tashi and her guardian. Hinton & Burke also have a good eye for visuals, giving viewers a vivid sense of the stunning Himalayan environs. It is a truly inspirational film that never feels saccharine or manipulative. Highly recommended for those interested in Himalayan culture and faith in action, Tashi and the Monk airs this Monday (8/17) on HBO.

Night Will Fall: Documenting the Concentration Camps

It was a case of one legendary director replacing another. Billy Wilder was in and Alfred Hitchcock was out, but the project was not a suspense-thriller, like Double Indemnity. It was a Holocaust documentary that was to incorporate devastating footage shot by Allied film crews during the liberation of National Socialist concentration camps. Only years later would a partial, incomplete cut see any sort of meaningful exhibition. However, the British Imperial War Museums have recently reconstructed and restored the intended director’s cut of the bureaucratically titled German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. Yet, there is still more to the story that is finally told in Andre Singer’s documentary, Night Will Fall (promo here), which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Some Hitchcock completists will be familiar with what was retitled Memory of the Camps when it aired on PBS, but the print was decidedly rough and the final reel was missing. Technically, it had never been completed (a problem the restoration team rectified using the surviving screenplay and cue lists). While it was generally known Hitchcock was more of an advisor than a hands-on director, Singer and company actually make a compelling case his vision largely guided the direction and aesthetic of the planned documentary.

While Hitchcock researchers really should consider it part of his filmography, producer Sidney Bernstein was the man most responsible for its day-to-day production and editing. Unfortunately, he would not see it to completion. With signs of the Cold War already surfacing during the early days of the Occupation of Berlin, the Allies essentially put the project in turnaround. The Americans still wanted a picture to convince Germans of their national guilt, so they recruited Wilder to recut some excerpts into the documentary short subject Death Mills.

As fascinating as the story is, Hitchcock fans will be disappointed he does not factor into Night to a greater extent, but he was only assigned to the project for a month. Nevertheless, they will gain a considerable appreciation for Bernstein, his team of editors, and the brave military cameramen who recorded the nightmarish footage in the first place. Ultimately, it is a tribute to their work, which in many cases left deep psychological and spiritual scars.

There are some dramatic interviews with surviving veterans and the excerpts from the finally finished film are truly horrific. Night also supplies a good deal of explanatory context that ought to be quite familiar to most viewers, but sadly is probably necessary given the declining level of historical awareness among younger generations and the precipitous rise of anti-Semitism abroad. If you have seen the work of Lanzmann and Ophüls, you should already know full well the bigger truths, but there are still telling details to be found throughout.

At just seventy-nine minutes, Night is brisk but surprisingly comprehensive. It also further burnishes Hitchcock’s reputation and gives Bernstein his long overdue acknowledgment. One can imagine it works best screening in conjunction with the restored Factual Survey (as it did at last year’s Berlinale), but it easily stands alone (as it will on HBO). Highly recommended for general audiences and particularly for students of history and cinema, Night Will Fall debuts this Monday (1/26) and repeats on various arms of HBO over the following days and weeks.

Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus: The Belarus Free Theatre in Exile

You can judge the legitimacy of Belarus President-for-life Alexander Lukashenko’s latest “re-election” by the countries that sent their congratulations: Venezuela, Syria, Russia, China, and deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. For many, it was just business as usual in what has been dubbed “Europe’s Last Dictatorship.” However, it was an outrageous affront to independent thinking Belarusians, like the underground Belarus Free Theatre (BFT). Filmmaker Madeleine Sackler provides an uncensored chronicle of the activist artists’ Annus horribilis in Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus (trailer here), which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

In a state as pervasively regulated as Belarus, any theater group that forthrightly holds a mirror up to society will have to operate outside the official arts bureaucracy, in direct defiance of the law. The small rag-tag troupe was accustomed to a routine level of surveillance and harassment, but the presidential election on December 19, 2010 precipitated a nationwide reign of terror. Co-founders Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin were close family friends of Andrei Sannikov, the leading opposition candidate everyone expected to win the presidency if the elections were even remotely fair. That did not happen. Although tens of thousands of protestors demonstrated on Liberty Square, the regime responded with violence, imprisoning Sannikov and six other opposition candidates.

Fortunately, most of the BFT were able to evade the KGB (yes, they retained those charming initials), ironically fleeing through Russia. However, the time away from their homeland and families takes a toll on them. The only way they know how to process it is through their art.

Classifying the BFT is a tricky proposition. Many of the productions Sackler documents are distinctly avant-garde, rather closely akin to the style of Poland’s formerly dissident Theatre of the Eighth Day. Yet, sometimes their performances are painfully intimate and achingly accessible. Frankly, the film’s most intense and devastating sequence does not feature the brutal violence unleashed by the KGB (though there is a good deal of that and it is truly appalling). Instead, a monologue written by featured actor “Oleg” relating the non-political circumstances surrounding a personal tragedy truly leaves audiences emotionally staggered.

Nevertheless, when performing under a regime that prohibits open discussion of mental health, suicide, drug use, and sexuality, the personal becomes perversely political. Sackler and her editors Anne Barliant and Leigh Johnson show Solomon-like judgment, perfectly balancing the political and the artistic, the national and the individual, the macro and the micro.  A heck of a lot of courage went into the making of Dangerous Acts, starting with the BFT, but also including the Belarusian cinematographer Sackler directed via Skype and the small army of eye witnesses and netizen-journalists who contributed protest-crackdown footage.

To her credit, Sackler has tackled some bold subjects, following up her first-rate charter school documentary, The Lottery, with the censorship-defying Dangerous Acts. As a result, she might be one of the few people who can say which is more ruthless protecting their power, Lukashenko or the New York teachers union. Both tell critically important stories, but Dangerous Acts has even more urgency. Highly recommended for all lovers of liberty and advocates for human rights, particularly on the weekend we celebrate our independence, Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus premieres Monday night (7/7) on HBO, with further air dates scheduled for 7/9, 7/10, 7/13, 7/16, 7/19, and 7/25.

Seduced and Abandoned: James Toback and Alec Baldwin Want Money

Alec Baldwin loves making movies so much, he is now a boring talk show host.  Perhaps this was the last hurrah for the star of Rock of Ages. He and director James Toback hit the Cannes Film Market hard in search of financing for a prospective indie production, simultaneously filming a documentary of their cold calling, at least guaranteeing they would not leave empty-handed.  There is plenty of pitching but not a lot of closing in Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned (trailer here), which airs on HBO this coming Monday.

The idea is to remake Last Tango in Paris in Iraq during the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam.  Baldwin will play the Brando role, re-conceived as a rightwing military advisor and Neve Campbell will step into the Maria Schneider part, transformed into a leftwing journalist.  Campbell cannot make the trip to Cannes, but Baldwin and Toback assure her they would never make the film without her.  However, they do not make it past their second pitch session before they start throwing her under the bus.  They still love Neve, but maybe she can play the maid who comes to change their sheets.

Before long, they are also pitching actresses like Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, and Bérénice Bejo along with prominent sales agents and the assorted eccentric millionaires.  Of course, Last Tango in Tikrit sounds so gob-smackingly un-commercial we almost have to wonder if it is all an extended Borat gag, except Baldwin and Toback take themselves so seriously.  On behalf of the nation’s film critics, I would like to thank the Cannes financiers for not stampeding to fund what sounds like a Frankenstein combination of The Canyons and The Green Zone.

Of course, in addition to the market, there is also a film festival going in Cannes, allowing the fundraising duo an opportunity to talk to some world cinema’s leading lights.  Since S & A is a documentary about the movies, Martin Scorsese duly sits for an interview.  Perhaps the best sequence involves a sit-down with Bernardo Bertolucci in a hotel suite named in his honor, at which time the Tango auteur gives them his blessing for their pseudo-remake.  Among the many other big name participants, James Caan has some particularly colorful things to say about the industry. 

If you want to hear Toback and Baldwin kvetch than brother, this is the film is for you.  If only they were as funny as they think they are.  Toback captures some amusing inside baseball moments at Cannes and he incorporates some cleverly selected film clips, but Todd McCarthy’s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema delivers far more behind the scenes details. Harmless but conspicuously self-absorbed, Seduced and Abandoned airs this coming Monday (10/28) on HBO.

Hemingway & Gellhorn: Papa Met His Match

Ernest Hemingway deliberately cultivated his notoriously macho image.  Yet, he somehow he found four women willing to marry him at various points of his life.  That was a lot of optimism, on everyone’s part.  Though she had the shortest tenure as a “Mrs. Hemingway,” war correspondent Martha Gellhorn was the most notable.  Matching and at times surpassing his feats of war zone journalistic daring, Gellhorn fired his passion and inspired his professional respect and jealousy.  Their tempestuous relationship is dramatized in Philip Kaufman’s HBO Film Hemingway & Gellhorn (trailer here) now currently airing on the network.

When ambitious young magazine writer Martha Gellhorn first meets the funky, grungy Hemingway in a Key West bar, they can barely resist tearing the clothes off each other.  The fact that he is married hardly matters to either of them.  However, their animal attraction will have to briefly wait until they reunite covering the Spanish Civil War, at the behest of ardent Spanish Republican supporter John Dos Passos.

Working with Dutch Communist documentarian-propagandist Joris Ivens, Hemingway and Dos Passos film The Spanish Earth (with Gellhorn tagging along), for the purpose of rallying American audiences to the Republican cause.  Frankly, it is considerable more compelling to watch their run-and-gun shooting process in H&G than the historical documentary itself.  That adrenaline also fuels the war reporters’ torrid affair.

Just like Hemingway and Gellhorn’s relationship, the film really clicks during their time together in Spain.  Viewers are served a liberal helping of Nationalist atrocities, but the portrayal of the Soviet forces is also refreshingly unvarnished, particularly with respects to fatal purging of heroic Loyalist soldier Paco Zarra, a stand-in for Dos Passos’ doomed friend José Robles.  While the literary power couple is shown fawning over Chou En-lai and sneering at the gauche Chiangs in China, Gellhorn also reports from Finland, unequivocally siding with the Finns against the Soviet invaders.

Unfortunately, the film loses vitality with the aging Hemingway, sliding into the long denouement of his dubious u-boat chasing Cuban years and sad final days in Idaho.  By the time America enters WWII, screenwriters Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner clearly suggest Gellhorn was more of a man than Hemingway.  Of course, this is a common problem with bio-pics.  To be accurate, they can almost never end with the good stuff.

Regardless of his character arc, Clive Owen totally goes for broke as Hemingway.  One of the few actors working today who can come across as both manly and literate, he bellows and carouses with relish.  It is a larger than life performance, bordering on camp, yet he is still able to convey Hemingway’s inner demons and nagging self-doubts.  He also manages to dial it down periodically for some saucy Tracy-and-Hepburn bantering with Nicole Kidman’s Gellhorn.  Likewise, Kidman is on a very short list of actresses who can play smart, sophisticated, and alluring, simultaneously.  In fact, she could be channeling Hepburn and the Rosalind Russell of His Girl Friday as the fast-talking, khaki-wearing journalist crusading against injustice, which is frankly pretty cool.

In addition to the strong chemistry between the leads, H&G boasts a strong supporting ensemble.  David Strathairn is particularly engaging as the disillusioned idealist, Dos Passos, serving as a subtle corrective to Hemingway’s ethical malleability.  Metallica’s Lars Ulrich adds notable color as Ivens, while Tony Shaloub conveys a sense of both the menace and tragedy of the Stalinist true believer Mikhal Koltsov, who is considered to be the source for the Karkov character in For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Again, the most inspired work comes during or prior to the Spanish Civil War sequences.

Frequently approximating the look of black-and-white news reels and Ivens’ documentary footage, H&G is highly cinematic (getting a vital assist from cinematographer Rogier Stoffers).  Kaufman is a big canvas filmmaker, with sufficient artistic stature to merit a recent MoMA film retrospective—a high honor indeed.  While steamier and gossipier than The Right Stuff, it is downright staid compared to his Henry & June and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 

An appropriately messy film sprawling all over the place, H&G is rather rowdily entertaining, capturing good deal more historical insight than one would expect.  Definitely recommended for those who appreciate the Hemingway oeuvre and persona (as well admirers of Gellhorn or Dos Passos), Hemingway & Gellhorn airs again on HBO June 2^nd, 7^th, 10^th, 11^th, 15^th, and 19^th and on HBO2 on June 4^th, 6^th, 12^th, 17^th, 21^st, 25^th, and 30^th.

NYFF ’11: George Harrison Living in the Material World

He was frequently dubbed “the Quiet Beatle,” but George Harrison could also be called the cineaste Beatle. One of his first solo projects was the original soundtrack for Joe Massot’s psychedelic Wonderwall, completed while the Fab Four were still together. After the band broke up, he eventually founded Handmade Films, providing a jolt of capitol for independent British filmmakers. Harrison himself gets a full 208 minutes of screen-time in Martin Scorsese’s definitive documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World (trailer here), which screens this Tuesday at the 49th New York Film Festival, just ahead of its HBO premiere.

Yes, George Harrison was a lad from Liverpool. The youngest Beatle, he was initially recruited because he could actually play. The general gist of the Beatles story will be generally familiar to just about everybody: initially, Lennon and McCartney were front-and-center, carrying the songwriting load, but slowly Harrison asserted himself, introducing the sitars and tablas into their later, trippier recordings. Since Yoko Ono consented to an on-camera interview, their eventual break-up is presented solely in terms of the stress of working so closely together for such a long time. Still, it is hard not to get sucked into Scorsese’s Harrison-centric retelling of the Beatles mythos.

However, it is something of a surprise how eventful Harrison’s post-Beatle years were, despite his often deliberately low profile (essentially constituting the second half of Material). Of course, his spiritual quest continued, which is a major focus for his widow, co-producer Olivia Harrison. Those who saw the IFC Channel’s behind-the-scenes history of Monty Python will already be well aware of Harrison’s close personal relationship to the comedy troupe, but who knew he was a Formula One Racing fan? In fact, one of the most touching interview segments features his friend Jackie Stewart, the “Flying Scotsman.”

If Ono gets a pass, at least Eric Clapton is forthright enough to address on-camera the whole business of how he romanced Harrison’s first wife while they were still married, albeit rather gingerly. Yet, for personal drama, the events surrounding the violent home invasion Harrison survived late in life, effectively serves as a rather stark climax.

Harrison’s friends and family make a compelling case he just might have been the most interesting Beatle. Scorsese calls in some major star power, including both surviving Beatles as well as fellow Traveling Wilbury Tom Petty. It is also a pleasure to see Jane Birkin (from Wonderwall) on-screen in any context, but it is just plain creepy when his one-time producer Phil Spector shows up.

Material is a very good rock doc, but the nearly three and a half hour running time is pushing the limit. According to IMDB, it is almost half an hour longer than Ken Burns’ Thomas Jefferson—and Jefferson was the first to do just about everything. Nonetheless, it is consistently more engaging than the Lennon documentary that screened at last year’s NYFF. As a further point in Material’s favor, Scorsese, Olivia Harrison, and their collaborators almost entirely avoid politics, focusing squarely on the musical, spiritual, and personal aspects of his life, essentially in that order of concentration. Informative and entertaining, Material screens this Tuesday (10/4) at Alice Tully Hall as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival and airs on HBO in two parts this Wednesday and Thursday (10/5 & 10/6).

HRWFF ’11: Love Crimes of Kabul

Witness Islamic Sharia Law in practice. It is impossible to consider it anything less than institutionalized misogyny after observing the prosecution of “moral crimes” in Afghanistan. With remarkable frankness, Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian takes viewers inside the Badam Bagh women’s prison, where half the inmates are incarcerated on dubious morals charges in Love Crimes of Kabul, one of the laudable selections of the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival that actually addresses human rights abuses.

All three of Kabul’s primary POV figures are young women, who should have had promising futures ahead of them. All three stand accused of the heinous crime of premarital sex, but only one of them actually engaged in what would be perfectly legal behavior in a rational society. Not to be spoilery, but care to guess which one gets the most lenient sentence? Indeed, it quickly becomes apparent that justice has no place whatsoever in Islamic Law.

Easily the most shocking case is that of seventeen year old Sabereh, who simply had the misfortune to be caught eating a meal alone with a boy. Suspiciously, when a medical examination confirms her virginity, the prosecution switches gears, charging her with sodomy, the equivalent of going nuclear. Of course, Eshaghian’s cameras were banned from Sabereh’s trial, lest the railroading be exposed to sunlight, but the fix was obviously in.

At first, Kabul makes the audience’s blood boil, but as the full implications of the injustices perpetrated in Badam Bagh become clear, viewers’ stomachs will turn to ice. Eschewing talking heads and voiceovers, Eshaghian captures a visceral sense of life for the accused. She also records some brutally honest conversations as the women struggle with their Kafkaesque situations. Despite the relatively short running time, Eshaghian patiently lets scenes play out so viewers can appreciate their full import. Though her overall access is quite impressive, when her cameras are banned (as during Sabereh’s “trial”), the significance is similarly inescapable.

While Eshaghian’s unfiltered approach is undeniably bold and bracing, she leaves one rather obvious question largely unexplored. In fact, one of the most striking aspects of Kabul is the considerable presence of toddlers in Badam Bagh, who were either delivered whilst their mothers serving their time or were essentially abandoned by their fathers. Strangely though, Kabul never tackles the issue of these true innocents growing up behind bars.

The injustices faced by the women of Badam Bagh in general and young Sabereh in particular demand official American intervention. No doubt, our current administration will get right on that, sometime after the U.S. Open. A shocking indictment, Kabul is a worthy companion film to The Green Wave, both of which are highly recommended at this HRWFF. It screens this coming Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (6/20-6/22) at the Walter Reade Theater. Part of HBO’s Documentary Films Summer Series, Kabul also premieres on the network July 11th.

George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones

The Lord of the Rings and Narnia films proved there is now adequate technology to credibly adapt epic fantasy for the big (or small) screen. Having sufficient time is a separate issue. Readers of big fat fantasy novels are not simply interested in hack-and-slash action. Exotic world-building and impossibly intricate plotting are arguably even more important for them. Enter HBO, who have done right by the fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice novels with their ten episode series adaption of the first book, Game of Thrones (trailer here), which debuts this Sunday night.

“Winter is coming” says the motto of the House of the Stark, but winters in the Seven Kingdoms have a bite beyond mere cold temperatures. Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark understands winters and wars better than anyone. A grizzled veteran who prefers his northern provincial home to life at the court in King’s Landing, he is ever loyal to his monarch and former comrade-in-arms, Robert Baratheon. However, when the “King’s Hand” (essentially a Viceroy) dies under mysterious circumstances, Stark reluctantly accepts the position. It will be awkward though. There is little love between the House of Stark and the House of Lannister, whose ranks include Queen Cersei and her arrogant twin brother Ser Jaime.

While the Lannisters give Stark plenty to worry about, there are other storms brewing on the horizon. Viserys Targaryen, Baratheon’s vanquished rival for the throne, has made an alliance with the barbarian hordes of the east, betrothing his sister to their Khal. Meanwhile, Stark’s illegitimate son Jon Snow has joined the Night’s Watch, which stands guard over the great northern wall, where there have been disturbing reports from the “lawless lands” on the other side.

Naturally, everything gets very complicated. In fact, those just looking for a little swordplay might grow impatient with the first two installments. Still, Game’s knack for ending each episode with a dramatic revelation should keep most viewers hooked. Fans of the novels should be especially delighted with the series’ attention to gritty details that vividly bring Martin’s fantasy world to life. Time is also profitably allotted to explore dozens of relations that a two hour feature would have had to sacrifice, such as the sparring sessions and life lessons dispensed to Arya, the youngest Stark daughter, by her fencing instructor, who looks and sounds as if he stepped out of a Rafael Sabatini novel (that is not a bad thing).

Coming in with serious swashbuckling credibility from his work as Bernard Cornwall’s Richard Sharpe, Sean Bean was the perfect (and perhaps only) choice to play Stark. He effortlessly combines a commanding presence with an unassuming integrity. An alumnus of sitcoms and The Full Monty, Mark Addy is surprisingly effective as the blustering, tempestuous king. He also has some intriguingly nuanced scenes with the beautiful Lena Headey, who makes a riveting Lady Macbeth figure as Queen Cersei.

Undeniably though, the real breakout fanboy superstar from Game will be Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, the queen’s hedonistic younger brother, known as “The Imp” for his diminutive size. Recognizing the appeal of a good anti-hero, Dinklage plays his role to the hilt, chewing the scenery and visibly enjoying his character’s wickedness. It is contagious. The Imp’s scenes crackle with verve, giving the series a jolt of energy with each and every appearance.

Game is a laudably ambitious undertaking that works remarkably well based on the evidence of the first six episodes. It gets epic fantasy right and definitely leaves viewers wanting more at the conclusion of each installment. While not especially violent (though there are certainly some intense sequences), parents should fully understand Game is not Narnia. There are plenty of elements that will definitely remind viewers they are watching HBO, the home of Michael Apted’s Rome, if you follow. Regardless, most relatively mature viewers should be absorbed by its intricate story and first-rate effects. Definitely recommended, Game’s first episode, Winter is Coming, debuts this Sunday (4/17), only on HBO.