The headline of an article in my October 19 Ottawa Citizen was “Don’t Netflix Away the Second Wave.”  Ok, I get it … don’t let the pandemic turn you into a couch potato, or wherever you settle down to binge watch.  Incidentally, the market value of Netflix, which now has almost 8,000 employees and 200 million subscribers, has multiplied 500-fold since 2002. What will this online trend do to cinema? (Check out: https://theplaylist.net/martin-scorsese-cinema-comfort-food-20200917/ .   “A Year without Movie Buzz” laments The New Yorker’s Richard Brody.) But with theatres closed again here (sigh) I’m glad for the streaming options even if the expanding array of choice can become overwhelming.   On TV, Crave’s The Good Lord Bird is great.   A review in The New Yorker praises its “mischievous irreverence” and Ethan Hawke is a holy terror as the militant abolitionist John Brown.   Meanwhile CBC is showing the compelling docuseries Enslaved .   HBO is wrapp...

  Is this the beginning of the end of the big screen?  I hope not! Ottawa theatres are shuttered again and thousands have closed across North America.  (All cinemas have stayed dark in New York and L.A. since March.) For a discussion of the prospects see the segment on this recent CBC radio program: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6 .  At the same time enormous amounts of good content are being added to streaming platforms.   However, let me begin with the best film I’ve seen this year— a 1977 Soviet one, The Ascent , by female director Larisa Shepitko.   (Tragically, it was her last feature as she and crew members were killed in a 1979 accident.)   This extraordinary masterwork was broadcast October 6 on the TCM channel as part of its presentation of Mark Cousins’ 14-hour docuseries Women Make Film: A New Road Movie through Cinema (A+).   More at: https://www.womenmakefilm.net/ .   See also: https://womenmakefilm.tcm.com/ and   https:...