aj_wagner Reviews

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Makes Me Examine My Preference for SOMETHING Redeeming

[3/10 · 5 February 2019]

No, I don't think I forgive her. This was boring & essentially unrepentant. Perhaps the acting showed more range for Melissa McCarthy. How nice for her. A previous reviewer described this as a "torpid downer". Exactly.

Black Earth Rising (2018)

Powerful. Creative. Complex. Best Series I've Seen in Some Time

[10/10 · 5 February 2019]

This series, frankly, left me changed in ways I don't fully understand yet - changed, I think, about human condition. John Goodman was as solid as John Goodman can get, but it is Michaela Coel's (Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson's) performance that is riveting! You are never shown the scenes of the genocide directly. They are creatively gentled in animation that tells the story without showing the story, and in aftermaths that drive home reality without a bloody middle. I was grateful for that. I love a good mystery and this has many!... And, I appreciate a deeper understanding of a history that seemed incomprehensible and far away at the time. Finally, I appreciated the complex view into the way in which White, Third World nations continue to profit from the mess we had a hand in both creating and in trying to repair. If you have a stomach for hope and despair, it doesn't get better than this.