I am happy to report that some theatres have reopened, including my Ottawa favorites the ByTowne ( https://www.bytowne.ca/ ) and the Mayfair ( https://mayfairtheatre.ca/ ).   Seen in theatres and reviewed below are: Joan of Arc, Nomad, Summerland, John Lewis: Good Trouble, The Great Green Wall, Arab Blues , and La bonne épouse (check listings). At the same time huge amounts of streaming content are being added.   My friend Audrey Rosa alerted me to the three seasons on Netflix of “Animal Kingdom” inspired by the terrific 2010 Australian feature of the same name (available on Amazon Prime Video).   Also on Netflix is another crime family series “Ozark”, the third season of which has earned scads more Emmy nominations. As for real-crime stories, a new Netflix docuseries World’s Most Wanted has five episodes on: a Mexican drug lord, a financer of the Rwandan genocide, a British female terrorist mastermind, a Russian mafia boss, and Italy’s last Cosa Nostra godf...

I’ve finally been back to my favorite independent Ottawa theatres, the ByTowne and the Mayfair, with precautions and limitations (mask-wearing, distancing and a 50-person audience maximum). But let me start with streaming suggestions from Netflix which already has over 36,000 hours of content to which it is constantly adding. Dark (Germany, three seasons 2017-2020, 26 episodes, Netflix) A- I only discovered this title recently but it appears to have been Netflix’s first original German series, concluding with the final season released in June. Although extremely strange as well as dark, the production is of high quality. The setting is the small German town of Winden in the shadow of the twin towers of a nuclear power plant.   Linked to that facility is a spooky cave with subterranean passages storing barrels of radioactive waste and, more importantly, a time-travel portal on which is inscribed the Latin phrase “ Sic mundus creatus est” (“Thus the world was created”) Scenario...

Cinephiles mourned the loss of the great Italian composer Ennio Morricone who died at age 91 earlier this month, especially remembered for his iconic film scores for the Clint Eastwood “spaghetti westerns” of the 1960s and for “The Mission” among other classics.   Also on the music front, although my last post was quite critical of the Netflix series “The Politician”, the best thing about it is to have introduced a wide audience to Ben Platt who has the title role.   Platt, who has been on stage since childhood and became a Broadway star, is a supremely talented musician, singer, and songwriter.   Check out the Netflix special Ben Platt Live from Radio City Music Hall , a fantastic performance, immensely appealing and candid, recorded last September.   As the “politician”, Platt’s character is determined to become president. So my favorite Platt quote is: “I’m counting the days until Trump is just a stain on history …”.   On the acting side, Platt has joined a...

The already vast amount of streaming content keeps growing. Some is on established specialty TV channels like HBO.   I’m grateful to it for showing the wondrous 2018 Quebec feature Une Colonie ( A Colony ), from first-time director Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, which has garnered numerous awards including best film at the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards. I remember watching “Perry Mason” as a kid with Raymond Burr in the title role.   Check out HBO’s new 8-episode version with Matthew Rhys as “Perry” and Canadian Tatiana Maslany as “Sister Alice”.   Also just arrived on HBO is David France’s searing Welcome to Chechnya ( https://www.welcometochechnya.com/ ) about LGBTQ persecution, particularly deadly in this ravaged Russian province ruthlessly ruled by Putin’s chosen strongman.   Amid harrowing scenes France observes the courageous work of activists in rescuing endangered individuals and getting them out of Russia (Canada is a noted country of refuge).   This is gu...