Veron The Reviewer

Penguin Bloom  is a drama film starring Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln. Watts plays Sam Bloom, a avid sportswoman who leans onto an unstable railing while on vacation in Thailand, causing her to fall over the railing and break part of her spine. Sam is therefore unable to move her legs after this, and the film chronicles her struggles to stay optimistic in the face of the tragedy and her fragile relationships with her husband and children, but she begins to regain some hope when the eponymous Penguin Bloom, a wounded Australian magpie found by the children, becomes a constant companion in the house and Sam grows to care for it. The plot is simple motivational "based on a true story" fare, with the arrival of wounded animal serving as the catalyst for embracing changes in life and overcoming adversity. It's not a bad thing, since these types of stories can be genuinely good. This one, however, seems rather mediocre, as the simple story blatantly tugs at the heartstrings to...

Godless  is a Western drama series. It stars Jack O'Connell, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Merritt Wever, and Jeff Daniels. Jack O'Connell plays outlaw Roy Goode who stumbles into the mining town of La Belle. Michelle Dockery plays Alice Fletcher, a widowed rancher living on the outskirts of the town; Scoot McNairy plays Sheriff Bill McNue, the burdened lawman doing his best to enforce the law in La Belle; and Merritt Wever plays Mary-Agnes McNue, Bill's sister and the de-facto mayor of the town. Jeff Daniels plays villainous gang leader Frank Griffin, who seeks only to hunt down Roy and get revenge for Roy's abandonment of his gang. The plot is simple, being more of a slow-burn build-up of relationships up to the climactic final confrontation, much like 11.22.63 , another period drama I previously reviewed. Roy spends most of his time helping to raise Alice's son and manage Alice's horses, doubtlessly hoping to rest and escape from his outlaw past. Bill spen...

11.22.63  is a science-fiction thriller drama series starring James Franco, Sarah Gadon, George MacKay, and Daniel Webber, based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. The story centers on Jake Epping (Franco), an English teacher who discovers a portal to the past, specifically to a day in 1960. His friend Al (Chris Cooper), who previously used the time portal multiple times and is now dying of cancer, tells Jake to go back to 1960 and attempt to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald (Webber). This begins Jake's journey into the past, attempting to find out if Oswald had any assistance his scheme, and to ultimately stop him from carrying out the killing. The story is suitably tense and thrilling, and while a lot of sequences seem to be utterly divorced from the main storyline of stopping the assassination and some drag on for a little too long, they serve as a fascinating exploration of the 60s, provide interesting side-plots for more thrills, and t...