[Amazon] With this work, Barry Jenkins offers a new dimension to that representation of the trauma of slavery that is already common in movies and series. Majestic in the visual concept, deep in the psychological journey through the discovery of many forms of slavery and many forms of liberation. There are episodes that are masterpieces, there are ideas that reveal the genius of a great director.
[Disney+] Peter Jackson not only makes an outstanding documentary about The Beatles, but completes a piece of music history. It is the best description ever made of the creative process of music, but it also contains surprising moments such as the conversation between John and Paul recorded clandestinely. In some ways, it rewrites some of what was known about the band's breakup and builds a different perspective..
[Filmin] An excellent political thriller that tackles some momentous issues with great effectiveness: the West's ambiguous relationship with the jihadists, the search for peace by promoting war, or the political implications surrounding the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. That Obama's speech at the delivery of his controversial Nobel Prize opens each episode is significant. Smart, full of tension without the need for big action scenes, magnificent in form and content.
One of the weirdest documentary series that can be found. The irony of John Wilson manifests itself in episodes with strange themes such as scaffolding or ways of covering furniture. The mastery of the project is in how it manages to make each episode drift towards unusual paths, which cast doubt on the lucidity of the human being. It is an unusual look at life, a discovery of the most remote places of our existence.
An intelligent adaptation of the Anne Rice novels that manages to be faithful but at the same time update the story and its characters. It introduces interesting elements of reflection and builds much more complex characters, who are made credible by the splendid performances. The destructive and violent romanticism is shown without limits, and especially the appearance of the new Claudia is brutal and ironic. There is a dark sense of humor that accompanies an outstanding series.
From the beginning, the show marks its own style with an intelligent and acid sense of humor. These small stories that are carried out by the main characters, with their own entity, build a vision of race and tradition through a new generation that has been raised with white popular culture, as the reference to Tarantino shows. But above all it's full of unforgettable characters (Uncle Brownie, Big or Spirit).
[Disney+] For many parents it can be a frustrating series because they don't live up to the playful Bluey and Bingo's parents, but basically it's a very entertaining show, which episodes like "Sleepytime" that are short film masterpieces. Although controversial for a somewhat patriarchal vision of the family, it's a celebration of playing as a fundamental educational process. And only for that it is worth it.
[tv+] A twist that balances humor and an ironic look at spy stories. Closer to American political thrillers than James Bond movies, it frames the action with a tone reminiscent of the 70s and 80s. And it has the rude and flatulent Jackson Lamb (hilarious Gary Oldman) as the main promoter of this group of outcasts. It's also a story about second chances and a political look at the resurgence of the extreme right.
[NRK] No, it doesn't take ten hour-long episodes to tell a deep story. In its five 30-minute episodes, this series reveals much more about the dark process of growing up facing harsh and painful realities. But it does so with a sense of humor and irony, with an ability to balance drama and comedy, and with such lovable characters, that it ends up being one of the most revealing series in recent years.
A clever chronicle of disappointment, the downfall of a myth, Dr. Huxtable meets Mr. Hyde. One of the most resounding descriptions of sexual abuse that broadens the look towards the depth of its consequences. Kamaus Bell reflects on the artist and the sexual predator, and on the "rape culture" that he has allowed (and allows) that defends the guilty and disapproves of the victims. The best definition is given by a victim: "Bill Cosby is a master at his craft. Whether it be acting, comedy or raping, he is a master."
A wonderful surprise in a series of conversations between producer Rick Rubin and singer Paul McCartney around music, and only around music. A deconstruction of the songs of The Beatles that is full of anecdotes, nothing revealing but always pleasant to listen to. They talk about influences, personal relationships, the passion of youth, the desire to experiment... They talk about music, and only about music.
[Max] The best comedy of the year. Apart from the obvious chemistry between Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, it builds a story that intelligently walks through risky areas. A representation of the dichotomy between the comfort zone and the bravery posed by the confrontation between the characters. Deborah and Eve have complex personalities that grow through their difficult relationship, while we enjoy the conflicts. S3 shows that it continues to be an intelligent comedy, incisive in its look at the artistic world and reflective in the personal relationship of two radically different women.
Focused on the investigation of a real event, the series manages to be addictive despite the fact that it eliminates the direct presence of the accused and the victim. The focus is exclusively on the complicated investigation process, the frustrating search for evidence, the compilation of a vital puzzle. It surely has the best Swedish and Danish cast in a series in recent years.
A splendid thriller, which has more strength in its background than in the police investigation, and possibly the best English cast of the year. It's a clever idea that reveals important data for the police plot, but also to build an environment of hostile coexistence, talking about the inability to face a future that was taken by a privatization of industries that meant a dismantling of the economic base of the UK.
Although the female point of view is corny and puerile in the voice-over texts, Sheridan manages to create a melancholic, sad and violent western with characters doomed to despair. And that reconstruction of a disillusioned colonialism provides characters as complex as Shea (Sam Elliott), who represents the beginning of the disappearance of a way of life and an era, for better and for worse, which is what masterfully connects the spirit of this prequel with "Yellowstone".
[NRK] Get the perfect balance between family drama and the chronicle of the enrichment of a small country like Norway thanks to the discovery of oil. Endowed with a great production design, focused more on indoor settings, it exposes on screen its status as the most expensive series in the history of Norwegian television. And draws political, religious and family scenarios with equal interest.
[Filmin] It contains the best elements of Xavier Dolan's cinema, but above all, it manages an episode structure that allows it to focus on each of the characters, and it even intelligently uses the cliffhanger. A 100% Dolan's story, with the family disruption from an event in the past and complex relationships between siblings, and especially between the mother and her children. It fearlessly indulges in drama through close-ups, flashbacks and dark, stifling photography, backed by a splendid score by Hans Zimmer and David Fleming, surprisingly fitting perfectly into the director's universe.
[TV2 Play] Through an energetic proposal, the director and creator of the series offers a look at the youth of the Norwegian town of Sarpsborg in 2001, involved in a criminal life. There are echoes of Joachim Trier, Guy Ritchie and Danny Boyle, but the series manages to balance an eminently local personality with a recognized universal view of addiction and life on the edge. Although there is nothing new, it is reminiscent of wild proposals like "Spun" (2002) and feels comfortable in alternating formats and narrative chaos. It transmits adrenaline in all its essence.
[tv+] Without a doubt, it's the Apple's best foray into the science-fiction genre, an approach to a dystopian society that is based on George Orwell's "1984" raising questions about populism, control of the female body, and the construction of a state that keeps secrets to build coexistence. There's outstanding suspense management, as in episode 3, and a proper balance between personal traumas and the overview of a silo holding on fragile basis. Although sometimes it's too obvious, especially towards the end, it has a coherent ending to broaden the field of vision of its main themes.
[HBO Max] Jesse Armstrong manages to wrap up the main arc of the series in the final episode. A Shakespearean tragedy that serves to reflect today's society, with kingdoms of clay and a poisoned legacy on which the root of the confrontation is sustained. It will remain as one of the best fictions of recent times, which has been given the opportunity to conclude as the tragedy that it has always been, wrapped in splendid moments of humor and irony. And it builds such a clear look at the fragility of the US political and business system that could only have been described from the outside.
[HBO Max] There are doubts about whether reality is also a fiction, but whether it is or not, it is a fascinating path that always finds ways to surprise. There are echoes of Charlie Kaufman, but also of Jean Rouch's experiments in "La pyramide humaine" (1961), and although it may seem somewhat narcissistic when Nathan Fielder himself gets involved in one of the trials, practically expelling the protagonist, finally it serves to make an ethical questioning of his own experiment.
A resounding drama about police violence and state terrorism, but above all about the racism impregnated in French society. It is a series that practices a necessary Manichaeism, that strives to give the exact place to the consequences of an act of irrational violence, covered up by the government. And that places Oussekine in the emotional center to give identity to those who were denied.
[NRK] A social chronicle with a dark and ironic sense of humor about a fishing community burdened by catch quotas. There is a construction of characters that are twisted but at the same time attractive, wrapped in a certain existential melancholy, in a depressive environment. The fiction takes some elements of historical events, dissects Icelandic society and creates a unique and fascinating community.
[HBO Max] George Pelecanos and David Simon offer mastery in dialogue and character building, connecting with "The Wire" in the dissection, not of a corrupt police force, but of a political and social system that feeds corruption. This amplified look at the hard-won mistrust of the security forces is a vision of a rotten society, reminiscent of the documentary "The Force" (2017) in the pessimistic conclusion that the corrupt will be replaced by the corrupt.
[tv+] The irregular structure of the story contributes to building a dialogue between the different generations in a family marked by trauma and a certain fatality. And skillfully builds an eminently Eastern family saga with elements of Western narrative, which is not negative in this case, quite the opposite. And especially it rests on the perfect tandem of directors Kogonada and Justin Chon, who provide breadth and approach in their respective episodes.
[Netflix] An exciting and vital journey that builds the portrait of the artist discovering the human being. Structured around sentimental relationships and friendships with Jed Johnson, Jon Gould and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it is a reflection of an era, of queer identity, of the threat of AIDS... Andrew Rossi achieves fluidity in the narration, guided by the reproduction of Warhol's voice using AI describing the words of his diary, showing himself as a person with contradictions.
[HBO Max] A fragmented representation of the need to build artistic bridges to survive. "Survival is not enough", it is the human condition that can rebuild life beyond simple subsistence. Shakespeare in an apocalyptic world, "King Lear" as a premonition of disaster, "Hamlet" as recognition of the past. Year 0 of the end of humanity, Year 20 of the beginning of the human being.
[Filmin] An extraordinary series about an extraordinary writer, who does not avoid controversies about his contradictory personality, repositioning some of the myths that have been built around his figure. With the usual classic format of the directors, this one favors the attention in the character, in his work and is life, with hypnotic voices of Peter Coyote, Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson or Meryl Streep.
[HBO] A masterpiece at the height of "When the leaves broke" (HBO, 2006). Visceral, personal and political. It is Spike Lee in his purest form, controversial but accurate. A love letter to New York as a survivor of the great tragedies of the 21st century, from 9/11 to Covid-19. A complex vision of today's North America (Black Lives Matter, Orange Agent President ...) that sometimes seems chaotic but contains a precisely measured structure and pace. An inspiring journey through the past reflected in the present.
[Movistar+] An effective police show with complex characters from Chris's depression to Rachel's paralyzing fear, police officers incapable of solving their own problems while carrying out the task of solving the problems of others. There is a reflection of Liverpool at night that exposes the virtues of the personal experience of screenwriter Tony Schumacher, creator of an intense series, both emotionally and narratively. The development of the characters in S2 consolidates it as one of the best police series produced by the BBC in recent years.
