Devin McGrath-Conwell

After getting its mojo back last week, Ted Lasso, if not the AFC Richmond squad within it, continues a winning streak with “The Strings That Bind Us.” Back from the Dutch excursion and triangular revelation, Ted (Jason Sudeikis), Beard (Brendan…

I must admit that after last week’s episode of Ted Lasso, I was nervous about where this third and final season might just end up. That episode was an uncharacteristically rushed and illogically characterized hour of television that indulged some of…

“Signs,” the fifth episode in Ted Lasso’s third and final season, holds within it the best and worst of Ted Lasso. I noted in my review of last week’s episode that this 12-episode run seems to be adhering closely to ideas of the three-act structure,…

Much of Ted Lasso season three has been about seeding and fertilizing the narrative ground with promises of major face-offs. The fourth episode, aptly titled “Big Week,” is the first instance of those roiling undercurrents surfacing with a vengeance.…

In the third episode of its final season, Ted Lasso tightens the screws on the extended AFC Richmond family. Foregoing the trend of song title riffs, this episode is titled “4-5-1,” lifting the formation the team adopts to accommodate their new star,…

Coming off a season premiere focused on the show’s more melancholy aspects, Ted Lasso delivers a lighter if no less insightful second episode of season three. Whereas our first step back pinged around to set the table for each key character, this…

After a second season that put Ted and company through a proper emotional wringer, Apple TV+’s hit Ted Lasso hit returns for a third outing. All signs point to season three being curtains for Ted Lasso, even if Jason Sudeikis keeps using interviews…

Writer-director Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul (2023) follows Frédérique “Freddie” Benoît (Park Ji-Min) during visits to Seoul, South Korea. Adopted from Korea as a baby by French parents, Freddie arrives in her unknown homeland as a 25-year-old. While…

Of the many talents the late Leonard Cohen possessed, he was arguably peerless in blending religion and eroticism. There is his channeling of desperate passion through the image of the saint in “Joan of Arc”—“Then fire make your body cold / I’m going…

Set in 1970s Rome, Emanuele Crialese’s L’Immensitá is a tender and electric portrait of a family. Clara (Penélope Cruz) watches over her three children Adri (Luana Giuliani), Gino (Patrizio Francioni), and Diana (Maria Chiara Goretti). Husband and…

I am old enough to have enjoyed the waning glory days of movie rental spots. My southern Maine hometown had a Movie Gallery. Anytime my parents took me down to pick something out it was a glorious day. They had a closeout sale when doom was…

In Marie Kreutzer’s film Corsage (2022), Vicky Krieps absolutely blows out the screen as Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Kicking off around Elisabeth’s 40th birthday, Kreutzer’s script follows a fictional year in her life. It begins with her locked in…

Broker (2022) continues writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s run of earnest examinations of fractured families, blood-related and otherwise. This newest film unfolds in Korea, where Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho) and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) work as baby…

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse (2022) began life as a bestselling 2019 book. Written and illustrated by Charlie Mackesy, who serves as co-screenwriter and co-director of the adaptation, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse is a warm…

In the profusion of films that confront life in its dimming moments, few are more acute than Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952). Equally true is that few of our old master filmmakers have been remixed more than Kurosawa. Seven Samurai (1954), Hidden…

Introduction Christmas Bloody Christmas is a deliciously unholy union of The Terminator (1984) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). With it, writer-director Joe Begos continues his run of grungy horror outfitted around a dark and playful heart.…

Heist movies are a chameleonic genre. Take the baseline need for a crew of thieves and a score; there are manifold ways to outfit stories around it. Michael Mann deployed the structure to tell the gripping cat-and-mouse tale of a criminal and the cop…

Though they have never truly faded from style, it would seem we are experiencing a full-blooded renaissance of vampire stories. Spurred on predominantly by television successes like What We Do in the Shadows (2019-) and Interview with the Vampire…

Since Cartoon Saloon burst onto the scene with its first animated feature The Secret of the Kells (2009), the Irish studio has steadily secured its spot as a consistent source of visionary and thoughtful work. Often mining the otherwise rich and…

Holy Spider (2022), the third feature from Iranian writer-director Ali Abbasi, premiered at Cannes earlier this year. At the festival, Zar Amir Ebrahimi won best actress, and Holy Spider was recently tapped as Denmark’s official Oscar entry for 2023.…