by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring
It would be accurate to call Here a gimmick movie, as the film is essentially one static shot of the same place over the course of Earth’s history through the present–with a heavy emphasis on the residents of a house built on the spot in the early 20th century.
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring
With mind-based powers, Wanda’s magic included, that often involves things that are even more morally and ethically tense.
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring
Seeing Wanda’s grief through her own eyes is probably the best justification for this series existing.
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring
To me, the highest compliment I can give WandaVision so far is that it is leaning into the episodic nature of television.
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring
Wandavision...now in color! With its third episode, the show moves along the sitcom timeline into the late 1960s and early 1970s, more Here’s Lucy than I Love Lucy.
by Ryan Silberstein, The Red Herring
The first two episodes of WandaVision treat the classic American artform of the sitcom as something to be replicated, to delightful effect.
Written and directed by Alan Ball
Starring Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, Peter Macdissi, Steve Zahn, Judy Greer and Stephen Root
Running time: 1 hour and 35 minutes
MPAA rating: R for language, some sexual references and drug use
by Audrey Callerstrom
Uncle Frank opens with a walk-through of a bustling South Carolina home in the late ‘60s and a venerable who’s-who of character actors. An uncertain teenage Betty (Sophia Lillis) feels lost in the shuffle. We have mother Judy Greer, father Steve Zahn, grandfather Stephen Root, great-grandmother Lois Smith, and her majesty Margo Martindale as Betty’s grandmother. In what proves to be an unnecessary voiceover, Betty explains how the only person she ever felt connected with was her dad’s brother, uncle Frank (Paul Bettany), a university professor who talks to Betty on an adult level. She can be whoever she wants to be, he tells her, heck, she doesn’t even need to call herself “Betty” if she doesn’t want to. It’s her name, after all. She switches to Beth and, a few years later, enrolls at the school in New York where Frank teaches.
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