wicked

The Dark and the Wicked

On a secluded farm, a man is slowly dying. Bedridden and fighting through his final breaths, his wife is slowly succumbing to overwhelming grief. To help their mother and say goodbye to their father, siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) return to their family farm. It doesn’t take long for them to see that something’s wrong with mom, though—something more than her heavy sorrow. Gradually, as their own grief mounts, Louise and Michael begin suffering from a darkness similar to their mother’s, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over their…
Read More

The Witches Review: More Wicked Than Your Typical Hocus Pocus

Children love terrifying stories. This is an obvious truth to any parent who’s ever shared a ghost story with their child, or any former kid who remembers the telling. Yet in the age of studio tentpoles, dark amusements for kids have largely disappeared—banished to the ether alongside anything else deemed too edgy. As the years passed, children’s movies got a little safer, a little more predictable, and a little less mischievous. Robert Zemeckis’ The Witches wishes to wave a magic wand that walks this all back. Premiering today on HBO Max, the newest film from the director of Back to…
Read More

The Good Lord Bird Episode 2 Review: The Wicked Plot

This The Good Lord Bird review contains spoilers. The Good Lord Bird Episode 2 During several moments of tonight’s The Good Lord Bird, my mind was whisked back to thoughts of My Fair Lady—or at least George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. In those texts, two confirmed old bachelors in Edwardian England think it is their privilege, if not duty, to remake a poor flower girl into their perfect image. It’s a tale of possessive manipulation and outright obliviousness. And it’s given a distinctly American flavor in the first few hours of Ethan Hawke’s Good Lord Bird. Like those earlier plays, here…
Read More

I Care a Lot Review: Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage Spar in Wicked Satire

Not since Gone Girl has Rosamund Pike been so perilously irresistible. All toothy grins and smiling eyes, Pike’s Marla Grayson enters every room in I Care a Lot as a ball of sunshine. But also like the sun, if you get too close to this woman, she’ll burn you alive—all while dipping into your savings account and selling the family home. That’s literally her job as a legal guardian: She takes care of people the state deems incapable of caring for themselves… and she’s made a hell of a mint doing it. “You’re a robber,” bemoans Dianne Wiest at one…
Read More

The Alienist: Angel of Darkness Episode 2 Review: Something Wicked

This THE ALIENIST review contains spoilers. The Alienist Season 2 Episode 2 “Get in good trouble. Necessary trouble,” is a famous quote from the late civil rights leader and United States politician John Lewis. Since his passing this week, the quote has been on my mind, for a variety of reasons, and I thought about it again watching “Something Wicked.” Sara, John, and Laszlo are experts at creating necessary trouble, but it certainly attracts attention and enemies. We know that former police chief Thomas Burns isn’t fond of our central trio, but now they’re attracting the ire of the infamous…
Read More