Hulu Series Review: Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette


It’s hard to believe that this July marks the 27th anniversary of one of the worst tragedies in the history of celebrity in this country. This horrific plane crash that caused the death of John, Caroline, and her sister Lauren in July 1999, like the death of Princess Diana in September 1997 and Kobe Bryant in January 2000, was far worse because the mistakes that caused them were all easily preventable.

The nine-episode series on Hulu, “Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette”, tells the entire story of the relationship between JFK Jr, played by Paul Anthony Kelly, and his wife, Caroline Bessette, revealing so many facts about that most would never have known, including how unlikely it was that they ever got married in the first place.

The frequent arguments that Caroline and John were mostly about John’s extreme fame and the unrelenting rudeness and aggression of the Paparazzi, which, for this series, has to be seen to be believed. Many of the arguments are hard to watch, especially the long one in the 8th episode, where it seems that Caroline was creating problems that did not exist or had no solution, as John tried to fix their problems and then finally gave up and left their apartment. Caroline is then left amazed that he left, even though she was the catalyst for this long argument from the start.

The other major part of this story was John’s attempt to create his own magazine, “George,” and the volatile relationship he had with Michael Berman, played by Michael Nathanson, with Berman amazingly rude to John, in almost every meeting, eventually causing a huge argument that led to a physical fight in John’s office.

The constant chain smoking in this series, with John and mostly Caroline, was hard to watch, considering their extreme wealth and privilege, taking risks like this. JFK Jr. would frequently ride his bike around New York City without a helmet, darting around roads and parked cars without regard to the risks he was taking with his life. John would rarely lock his bike, resulting in many thefts over the years. Clearly someone like John F. Kennedy Jr. had a different way of looking at life.

Actor Naomi Watts, is very good in her role as Jackie Kennedy Onassis who died in May 1994 at the age of 64 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Early in the series, there were several scenes where it was clear that Jackie did not approve of John’s dating actor Daryl Hannah played by Dree Hemingway.

The scenes leading up to the plane crash in July 1999, were well done, as they just showed all three sitting in this small single-engine plane and John’s disorientation due to the fact that he was never trained and certified for night flying. Why would Caroline and Lauren get into this small plane at night, when they knew that John did not have enough training to fly at night, is a question that will never be answered.

This Hulu series is very well acted and produced, and, surprisingly, it took this many years to develop a story about one of the worst tragedies in American history. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 81% is too low, with my rating 90% and a strong recommendation.

Movie Review: Normal


With Bob Odenkirk’s recent action movies “Nobody” (2021), “Nobody 2” (2025), and now “Normal” about a temporary police Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota, it seems that Odenkirk is starting a franchise of one word crazy action movies that start with the letter “N”.

Normal starts out as a run-of-the-mill, boring police story in a small town, and then later explodes into an insane idea involving a criminal mob from Japan, a small bank with a vault loaded with many gold bars and millions of dollars, with a plot twist impossible to see coming.

This film stars Bob Odenkirk as the temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson, who has been through a tragic incident and is looking to escape by becoming a temporary Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota. Ulysses runs into many off-the-wall people in the abnormal town of Normal, including the Mayor of the town Mayor Kibner, played by Henry Winkler.

For this third insane Odenkirk action movie, the action scenes do not happen until around the middle of the story, and then a huge explosion of death, gunfire, and destruction as the final climax with the criminal gang from Japan.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 77% are mostly correct, but the previous two Odenkirk action movies were better. I agree with this rating and do recommend Normal.

Movie Review: You, Me & Tuscany


The new film “You, Me & Tuscany” is what I would call a light romantic comedy, a mostly run-of-the-mill, forgettable two hours.

The upside of this mostly average story and movie are the locations and vistas of Tuscany, Italy, which has been the location of other movies in the past, the most memorable is the Diane Lane film “Under the Tuscan Sun”, released in 2003.

This story has been told many times before: two people, each carrying their own emotional baggage, find themselves in Tuscany under unexpected circumstances. In this case, the main character, Anna, played by Halle Bailey, finds herself in Tuscany, after a small fling with a man she meets at a restaurant, even though she has almost no money, and only because she saw that this man, she met Marco Calvani, is wealthy and his house in Tuscany is empty. Then Anna meets and is attracted to Marco’s brother Micheal, played by Regé-Jean Page, setting the stage for some insane drama at the end of this story.

The Rotten Tomatoes are a correct and predictable 69%, because there is nothing new here, just another run of the mill romatic comedy story. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie.