Tag: Matthew Macfadyen

Holland (2025) | REVIEW

NICOLE KIDMAN stars in HOLLAND — PHOTO: JACLYN MARTINEZ / PRIME.

Directed by Mimi Cave — Screenplay by Andrew Sodorski

In 2022, Mimi Cave’s debut feature FRESH, a thriller about dating with a wicked twist, was one of the, ahem, freshest surprises of the year. Naturally, this always makes you curious about the director’s next step. For her sophomore effort, Mimi Cave dropped her first film’s very modern narrative and feel in favor of an early 2000s narrative set in a quirky Michigan suburbia. Cave’s Holland is a psychological drama with thriller elements that is set in Holland, Michigan (hence the title), which is a town settled by Dutch-Americans and which prominently displays its Dutch cultural identity with tulip fields and windmills. The film follows Nancy Vandergroot (played by Nicole Kidman), a teacher who is starting to suspect that her husband, Fred (played by Matthew Macfadyen, is living a double life on his many work trips. To figure out what is going on, she teams up with a colleague, shop teacher Dave Delgado (played by Gael García Bernal), to spy on her husband and investigate his optometrist office. However, in that process, Nancy may have bitten off more than she can chew, as her husband’s secrets aren’t exactly what she expected, while, at the same time, she starts having an affair with Dave.

Continue reading “Holland (2025) | REVIEW” →

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) | REVIEW

Deadpool looking up at the Wolverine in Shawn Levy’s DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE — PHOTO: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Directed by Shawn Levy (Free Guy; The Adam Project) — Screenplay by Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, and Shawn Levy.

Later this year, it’ll have been 7 years since Disney’s acquisition of Fox was announced. Included in the Fox acquisition were its assets including ‘their’ portion of Marvel characters, which had long been unable to be a part of Disney’s immensely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe of stories. I think a lot of fans out there will have, at that time, thought that years later they would have all been integrated into the Disney-Marvel-connected universe of live-action films, but, in actuality, it’s been quite slow. Certain characters have popped up in relatively insignificant ways, the classic X-Men theme song has played once or twice, and, sure, Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) did have some non-committal fun with the characters that Marvel fans have been desperate to have alongside the Avengers. Now, though, a significant part of that wait is over. Shawn Levy’s Deadpool and Wolverine is the first Marvel Studios film to be explicitly about a Marvel-Fox character and his integration into Marvel Studios. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it’s the one character that is the least audience-safe Disney character of them all: Deadpool, who is known for his R-rated violence and crude humor. Going into this film the big question for many fans was whether or not Disney, through Marvel Studios, would allow Deadpool to actually be the character that fans have come to know and love. The answer, which I can now give after having seen the much-anticipated film, is a resounding ‘yes.’

Continue reading “Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) | REVIEW” →

The Fourth Season of Succession (2023) Reinvented the Show by Living Up to its Promise | REVIEW

Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, and Kieran Culkin in HBO’s Succession — PHOTO: HBO.

It has been more than a month since Jesse Armstrong’s Succession, a highly addictive Shakespearian family comedy-drama, came to an end. Though I watched it week-by-week as it aired and even though I could’ve reviewed it right after the season finale was released, it never felt right to me to talk about this season of the show without actually diving in and talking about how the details of the season, how the ending of the show, and how its showstopping third episode all made this season what it actually ended up being. That meant that I had to give it some room to breathe so as to not spoil the conclusion to what I think is honestly one of the best shows of its era. One might have feared that, as the show moved into its final season, perhaps they didn’t know how to end it, that they didn’t how to do something new with it, or that what had once been so compelling and energetic about it would dim as the curtain call had been announced. Not so. In fact, I think Armstrong’s series wisely went out on a high (and presumably on its own terms) with a final season that understood that it was time to keep the promise inherent in the show’s title. It was an inevitable move, but it was also a move that ended up being risky exactly because of how early in the season it happened. Succession‘s fourth and final season is an example of a showrunner and a writer’s room understanding fully the ins and outs of a show so as to deliver a tragic but inevitable conclusion that will stick with its viewers for quite some time.

Continue reading “The Fourth Season of Succession (2023) Reinvented the Show by Living Up to its Promise | REVIEW” →

REVIEW: Succession – Season Three (2021)

Matthew Macfadyen as Tom Wambsgans in Succession: Season Three, Episode Nine, “All The Bells Say,” — Photo: Graeme Hunter / HBO.

This is a full season review of Succession: Season Three — All episodes are available now on HBO Max.

Some of the best television show writers, directors, and creators know how to seemingly blow up their shows in exciting season finales all the while still making these unforeseen events feel true to the show, and then they pick-up where the last season left off with equally good and layered writing, and with convincing twists and turns. While that description may sound more like Breaking Bad than a show about the line of succession in a right-wing media company, it is also true for Succession (and their writers), which, again and again, takes its characters in enthralling new directions. The second season of Succession was right up there with The Leftovers, as some of the most gripping and well-written television on HBO ever, and I’m happy to say that the third season, which went in directions that I hadn’t anticipated at the end of the second season, is equally good. Jesse Armstrong and the Succession writers’ room have done it again.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Succession – Season Three (2021)” →

REVIEW: Succession – Season Two (2019)

Release Poster – HBO

The following is a short review of the second season of HBO’s Succession.

In the second season of Jesse Armstrong’s Succession, the future of Waystar Royco is still uncertain as shareholders are still considering the coup that Kendall (played by Jeremy Strong) orchestrated. So, to prove that the Roys can still be trusted to lead the company into the future, Logan (played by Brian Cox) has to start to consider who his successor should be. This season, Siobhan (played by Sarah Snook) becomes interested in the top position, Roman (played by Kieran Culkin) becomes fascinated by Gerri (played by J. Smith-Cameron), Connor (played by Alan Ruck) wants to become President of the United States, and Kendall seems incapacitated under his father’s thumb. Continue reading “REVIEW: Succession – Season Two (2019)” →