Doctor Who – The Church on Ruby Road

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – The Church on Ruby Road
  • wiki: link

Doctor Who - The Church on Ruby Road

The last of the four holiday specials, “The Church on Ruby Road” marks the first adventure of the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and the introduction of his next companion in Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) and her adopted mother (Michelle Greenidge). Ignoring for now the rather obvious comparisons between Ruby and Rose, Gibson’s story also comes with a mysterious heritage whose foreshadowing looms large over the episode. While I think it’s possible the identity of her parents won’t play a major role in her arc, I don’t think it’s all that likely. While that provides one mystery, another is raised in the identity of the Sunday’s neighbor (Anita Dobson) who knows more than your average person about time travel and the TARDIS.

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The Color Purple

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Color Purple (2023)
  • IMDb: link

The Color Purple

Taken from the Broadway musical which was itself adapted from Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, we meet Celie (Fantasia Barrino) who, like the other African-American women in the story, is treated rather shabbily over the first two-thirds of the film by men before standing up for herself to her abuser (Colman Domingo) and, at least in this version, having her story turn on a dime (which may or may not give you whiplash) where she receives everything she could ever have wished for over the film’s final act.

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The Boys in the Boat

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Boys in the Boat
  • IMDb: link

The Boys in the Boat

As director, George Clooney has tackled period pieces before (see Leatherheads, The Monuments Men, and the terrific Good Night, and Good Luck). This time Clooney follows the journey of Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) who joins the University of Washington junior varsity rowing team not out of any love for the sport but as a way to help cover his tuition during the lean years of the Great Depression. Rowing, or crew, isn’t the most cinematic of sports, but the screenplay by Mark L. Smith which adapts Daniel James Brown’s non-fiction novel, plays on the intense conditioning, hard work, and teamwork of the sport with the JV crew the underdog team at a university of underdogs with much to prove to themselves and others.

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Wonka

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Wonka
  • IMDb: link

Wonka

The attempt to tell the origin story for Roald Dahl‘s famous eccentric chocolatier is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand we get Timothée Chalamet as the still naive young man seeking his fortune creating chocolate for the world to enjoy which provides the heart of the film. There’s enough here that we can see the possibility of this version of Willy Wonka growing into the far more gruff character we see played by Gene Wilder. On the other hand we’re left with a script that turns out to have little to do with chocolate and more to do with crazy antics, involving bumbling bad guys, really only suited for small children.

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