Author Archives: jjcwn

Apple TV Series Review: Shrinking

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The Apple TV series “Shrinking” is brilliant with unusual, funny, and sometimes crazy dialogue. People in real life never talk this way, but the good thing about dialogue like this is that it will hold your attention throughout each hour of this series.

The cast of Shrinking starts with Harrison Ford, in his first-ever television series, playing a character that seems a lot like the person he is on talk shows. Somewhat quiet, moody, funny, and sarcastic. Harrison plays Dr. Paul Rhoades who works as a published Therapist in the Pasadena California area where he shares the same office complex with two other Therapists – Jimmy Laird, played by Jason Segel, and Gaby played by Jessica Williams. This idea of several doctors sharing the same office complex and dealing with so many patients and personal problems is the backdrop of this extremely entertaining two seasons with the last episode #12 of season 2, recently released on Apple TV.

Unfortunately, Jimmy lost his wife at the start of this series in a car accident and Paul has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Jimmy frequently has conflicts with his daughter Alice that also include problems as a direct result of his wife dying in a car accident. There are also several conflicts with Jimmy’s two neighbors Liz played by Christa Miller and Derek played by Ted McGinley that are very often funny despite the real life issues that they all face.

The best part of this series is the character Sean played by Luke Tennie. Sean has several psychological problems after his experiences in the war in Afghanistan including getting into fights and lashing out in anger. At first Sean is patient of Jimmy and their friendship grows during Sean’s many sessions leading to Sean living in Jimmy’s pool house. Paul does not approve of Jimmy and Sean’s friendship, because it violates a fundamental rule of doctors and patients, and because of this, Paul takes over Sean’s therapy sessions.

Several other characters are also standouts in this series, including Brian, played by Michael Urie, who is gay and sometimes works as Jimmy’s lawyer. His presence generates many scenes of humor throughout this series and Louis played by Brett Goldstein, who was the the drunk driver who killed Jimmy’s wife. After a great deal of conflict between Jimmy and his daughter Alice, Louis slowly becomes a friend of the family despite the extremely tragic circumstances.

From what I have seen that is currently on Apple TV, this series is the best and most entertaining.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews are an extremely high 97% for this series and I agree with this rating and highly recommend Shrinking.

Movie Review: The Fire Inside

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In the history of movie making, many of the best screenplays are about true stories, even better are true sports stories. The new movie “The Fire Inside” is one of those great true stories about an athlete, this time an amateur woman boxer, Claressa Shields played by Ryan Destiny, who is the first boxer in history, man or woman to win the gold medal in two consecutive Olympics: 2012 London and 2016 Rio.

Claressa’s story is about being poor in the worst living conditions in Flint Michigan, where every day was a struggle to stay alive and try and find the strength to make it to another day. This story starts in 2006 when Claressa was 11 years old and would wander over to a local boxing gym where a boxing trainer Jason Crutchfield, played by Brian Tyree Henry would train young boys how to box. At first, Jason refused to train a girl, but through perseverance, Claressa was eventually trained by Crutchfield who soon found out that this young girl had a powerful “fire inside”.

Despite her extremely dysfunctional home life, Claressa’s impressive work ethic and determination, are portrayed very well in this story, all the way through a series of boxing tournaments that led Claressa to China and then to the London Olympics in 2012 – an almost impossible feat for a 17-year-old girl from a poor neighborhood in Flint Michigan.

Once the Olympic gold medal is obtained, the real-life part of this story begins because of all of the endorsements that were expected to rescue Claressa from her life of squalor – none of them came through, despite the efforts of Claressa’s coach Jason Crutchfield to find her a deal. This was because marketing executives did not think that a woman fighting other women was good for selling products. This part of the story I thought was the best, reminding us that calling life “unfair” has never been a strong enough word.

The conclusion involved Clarissa moving to Denver to train with the Olympic team try try and win another Gold medal, supported financially by the U.S. Olympic team. This choice turned out to be the only option Clarissa had to generate an income from her Gold medal that at one point, she thought of selling to a Pawn Broker.

The actress who played Clarissa, Ryan Destiny, has a perfect movie star face, excellent acting ability, and did a great job in all of the boxing scenes. Brian Tyree Henry is also great in his role as a boxing trainer living in a very poor neighborhood trying to help kids.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a very accurate 95% and receives my highest recommendation.

Netflix Movie Review: The Six Triple Eight

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The new Netflix movie “The Six Triple Eight”, written and directed by Tyler Perry is a World War II story about 855 black women in a troop commissioned to sort and deliver 17 million pieces of delayed mail, including letters, and packages that were addressed to U.S. troops in Europe. A task vital to the morale of the troops fighting in the war.

This movie reminded me in so many ways of the great 2016 movie “Hidden Figures” about genius black women who faced bigotry and disrespect from the men and women at NASA, but despite this, saved the space program and the lives of several astronauts along the way. Movies like this are necessary to finally show respect to great human beings who were never recognized like they should have been. The expression goes, “Better late than never”, but like Hidden Figures, this movie will make many people angry that it took so long for the world to know about this amazing group of 855 women during World War II.

The Six Triple Eight (6888) is the name of the army troop of black women who were given an impossible task under disaster conditions while facing nothing but resistance from the entire higher ranks of the U.S. Army, who through their bigotry, actually wanted these women to fail. Within a large series of huge airplane hangers, the Army stored millions of letters and packages that were never sent. The women were housed in a heavily damaged building, with no heat for months, and despite impossible odds and lies from several members of the U.S. Army claiming they were not doing their job, they managed to complete the task in 90 days, even though they were given 6 months.

This film stars Kerry Washington as Major Charity Adams, in one of her best acting roles. Washington is outstanding, especially in the scenes where she stands up to the outrageous disrespect she receives from her superior officers, with the main standout being General Halt, played by Dean Norris, who is most known for this portrayal of Hank Schrader the lead police officer in the “Breaking Bad” TV series.

I was also impressed with some of the early action scenes showing some battles of World War II, considering this is a lower-budget Netflix production.

A key quote from Major Adams in this film summarizes what these 855 women faced very well, “Because you are Negroes and women,” she tells them, “you do not have the luxury to be as good as the White soldiers. You have the burden to be better.” Another great quote is: “They did not send us because they thought we could do it, we are here because they are sure we cannot.” Considering the importance of this impossible task during World War II it is amazing to realize that the U.S. Army would employ so many black women to deliver so much mail while hoping they would fail.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this very good and significant World War II movie, is an absurdly low 50%, with a correct audience ranking of 82%. This time around, I agree with the audience ranking and consider this a must-see Netflix film.