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ST. DENIS MEDICAL: Actress Allison Tolman on the NBC comedy – Exclusive Interview

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:58:44 +0000

NBC’s comedy series ST. DENIS MEDICAL has its second-season finale on Monday, April 6. Fans need not fear: ST. DENIS MEDICAL has been picked up for a third season, and the first two are available for streaming in their entirety on Peacock.

Created by Eric Ledgin & Justin Spitzer, ST. DENIS MEDICAL is a mockumentary that follows the overworked but mostly dedicated staff of the underfunded title hospital.

Allison Tolman stars as warmhearted nurse Alex, whose dedication to her patients often conflicts with her family commitments. (Other stars include David Alan Grier as seen-it-all chief of surgery Ron and Wendy McClendon-Covey as ambitious hospital administrator Joyce.)

Originally from Sugar Land, Texas, Tolman had the lead in the short-lived 2017 sitcom DOWNWARD DOG. However, prior to ST. DENIS MEDICAL, she was primarily for bringing a leavening but still serious tone to dramatic fare. This includes her Emmy-nominated performance as a small-town sheriff in the first season of FARGO and a small-town police chief in the science-fiction series EMERGENCE, as well as the late real-life journalist Winnie McLendon in the miniseries GASLIT.

Tolman participates in a Q&A session for ST. DENIS MEDICAL arranged by NBC for the Television Critics Association (TCA). Later, she makes time for a one-on-one follow-up conversation. This interview combines that discussion with comments from the panel.

After so much drama, was Tolman actively looking for something different at the time she got ST. DENIS MEDICAL?

“I wasn’t, really. It just kind of fell into my lap. Certainly, I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself on a network sitcom. I think, years ago, I would have said network sitcoms were probably dead. But I think they’ve been revived in recent years, and we’re riding that wave. But I wouldn’t have seen myself on a network sitcom, or even really back on a network. I was trying to head more towards streaming and HBO, where everybody wants to go do dramas.”

What made Tolman gravitate towards half-hour humor was bonding with her mother over TV comedy during a period of time that also gave her insight into nursing and hospital operations.

“Just before I took this role, my father was very ill. He’s okay now, [but] I went home to Texas for several months to be with my parents while he was sick, so I was really entrenched in the hospital and in the healthcare system for the first time in my life. My mother would come home from being in the hospital at night, and all she could handle was watching a half-hour comedy. That’s all that was palatable to her, and so we watched a lot of sitcoms together.

“When I got this script, it felt like kismet. It felt like, this is exactly the show I was supposed to be doing. I really felt like it’s an homage to that time with my mom, was a perfect little half-hour comedy.”

Tolman especially enjoys the mockumentary format. “I always know that I can comment on [scenes] to the camera. So, it’s just part of how I work now. It’s such a treat, because we get to acknowledge the cameras in every scene. It’s so much fun.”

Getting to talk directly into camera is an aspect of ST. DENIS MEDICAL Tolman loves “so much. Every Monday, I have to remind myself that we get to do that. Because [on most shows] you never look down the camera. If you look down the camera, you’ve blown the take.”

That said, having the characters know they are being videotaped is “a hard line to walk, because they have to be aware of the camera, but they’re also doing things they probably wouldn’t do with a camera there. So, it’s a delicate tightrope walk.”

On the other hand, Tolman tries to avoid being aware of the camera, at least in terms of her own appearance. “If you think about how you’re going to look on camera later, you’ll lose your mind. I can’t think about it.”

Playing a skilled nurse has been an educational experience, Tolman relates. “Every week, I have to learn something new. We have two med techs, Jamie [Watkins] and Rachel [Daigh], who are nurses, with us every single day. They teach us how to do medical procedures, they teach us how to pronounce things correctly, they teach us what the proper protocol is. We wouldn’t be able to do it without them. They keep us honest.”

The tension between hilarity and mortality is something Tolman appreciates about ST. DENIS MEDICAL. “The fun of it is, we get to play these folks who are reattaching arms, but then also just have to eat, like, it’s lunchtime. Also, I need some coffee, because I was up all night with the baby or whatever. I find something really charming about the mundane in the most extreme circumstances.

“Everyone who is visiting the hospital is in extreme circumstances, but as extreme as they are, they’re not extreme for us. It’s just another day, and someone has a day off, and it’s somebody’s birthday. For me, every episode has a moment where that sincerity and that heartfelt core shine through. I think we’re really lucky in that way.”

Tolman reports that her enjoyment with work is less about the tone or genre of the project than about her colleagues. “I think that I have as much fun shooting a comedy as shooting a drama. For me, it has to do with the people that you’re with, not necessarily the material that you’re doing. It’s certainly fun to do a comedy, because you’re cracking up more between takes about what’s happening on camera. But you can keep things light while you’re shooting a drama as well. It just depends on the tone of the set.”

FARGO and GASLIT had definite conclusions, but EMERGENCE was designed to be ongoing. Is Tolman sorry it only got one season?

“I was. I loved that cast, I loved that show, but we lost that show during the pandemic, and the whole world changed. So, it seems silly to miss something that is from sort of a former iteration of society, you know what I mean?”

Tolman has been experimenting with another aspect of the business. “I’ve been writing a little bit. I can’t say anything about what I’ve been writing yet, because nothing’s done yet,” she laughs,”but hopefully, you’ll be able to see my name as a hyphenate in the future.”

And what would Tolman most like people to know about ST. DENIS MEDICAL?

“That it’s a beautiful balance of funny and heartwarming, and they should tune in for a few episodes and see if they love it.”

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Movie Review: THE YETI

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 06:02:40 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings, Christina Bennett Lind, Gene Gallerano, Linc Hand, Elizabeth Cappuccino, William Sadler, Corbin Bernsen
Writers: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta
Directors: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta
Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment
Release Date: April 4, 2026 and April 8, 2026 (AMC theatrical); April 10, 2026 (digital)

Written and directed by the team of Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta, THE YETI is set in the ‘40s and aspires to look as though it was made in the ‘50s. Its style seems to be part of its reason for being. It’s agreeable as a throwback and has some bullseye performances, even if it never incites real fear and its cryptid credentials are wobbly.

An opening title tells us we’re in the Alaskan Territory, 1947. A black-and-white (except for splashes of red) prologue introduces us to a small expedition, led by oil tycoon Merriel Sunday Sr. (Corbin Bernsen), with famous explorer Hollis Bannister (William Sadler) in tow.

The group has found their way to a small cabin, where they’re currently sitting around, playing cards. The leaky roof needs repair. This goes extremely badly.

Cut to a ‘40s-esque newsreel, announcing that Merriel Sunday, Jr. (Eric Nelsen) is mounting an expedition to locate his now-missing father. The rescue party includes Sunday himself, plus WWII veteran and communications expert Booker Marchmont (Jim Cummings), zoologist Margaret Lamb (Christina Bennett Lind), whose sister is among those unaccounted for, security expert and sharpshooter Leander Coates (Linc Hand), demolitions specialist “Dynamite Dan” (filmmaker Gallerano), and cartographer Ellie Bannister (Brittany Allen), daughter of Hollis.

Ellie is our main focal point. As THE YETI segues into full (albeit often muted) color, Ellie is initially reluctant to join Sunday Jr.’s team, partly because she is estranged from her father. However, her conflicting emotions finally send her to Alaska with the others.

After someone disappears in the woods, only to be found as a pile of torn body parts, the survivors begin to suspect that an unknown animal is responsible. A gargantuan footprint in the snow adds credence to this theory.

There’s a third-act twist that adds some human drama beyond the who’s-a-coward/who’s-courageous dynamics interspersed with kills throughout the earlier portions of THE YETI.

The serious character exchanges are effective in this context, neither too heightened nor too underplayed. Allen is a major asset, period-appropriate with absolute conviction.

Additionally, the story beats generally work, with tension around how and where people may be attacked.

But THE YETI suffers from a problem that plagues many low-budget (and even some not-so-low-budget) monster movies. The gore is fine, and the hints (the footprint, detached claws) are impressive, but the monster itself doesn’t look terrifying.

Nobody ever calls the thing a yeti. This is just as well, since yetis are Tibetan, not North American. Our heroes do, however, throw around the term Australopithecus. While this is a complaint of the highest nerdy nitpickiness, Australopithecus, real beings, were determined (from skeletal remains) to be under five feet tall. This is what we, and the onscreen scientists, are supposed to believe is the enormous entity stomping through the Alaskan forest?

For those who find the 1951 Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks-directed THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD to remain the zenith of horror entertainment, THE YETI should provide special satisfaction. For everyone else, it’s well-made but less than scary.

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Movie Review: OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 06:02:34 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Jaeden Martell, Asa Butterfield, Chris Bauer, Becky Ann Baker, Avan Jogia, Anna Baryshnikov, Pippa Knowles, Noah Centineo, Jennifer Ehle
Writers: Ricky Camilleri & Oscar Boyson
Director: Oscar Boyson
Distributor: Picturehouse
Release Date: March 27, 2026 (New York), April 3, 2026 (Los Angeles), subsequent (wider theatrical)

OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR is an intriguing if occasionally generalizing look at the nexus of gun culture, the Internet and performative behavior, especially through the lens of youth.

We meet Balthazar (Jaeden Martell) as he is recording himself weeping into his cellphone about how lonely he is – but when the recording stops, so do the tears.

Balthazar, or “Balthy,” as he prefers to be called, is an ultra-wealthy high school senior in Manhattan. His father is with his “new family in Westchester,” but he still funds the high lifestyle of Balthazar and his political fundraiser mom (Jennifer Ehle).

Balthazar is fascinated by school shootings, along with his own ability to effortlessly fake-cry. He doesn’t want to commit a massacre himself, but he’s chatting online with Deathdealer_16, who claims to be planning one.

Balthy’s classmate crush Eleanor (Pippa Knowles), a scholarship student, sincerely wants to stop school shootings. When his efforts to impress Eleanor backfire, Balthy resolves to stop Deathdealer_16.

To this end, Balthy uses his expertise in creating deepfakes to craft a sexy female online persona to catfish Deathdealer_16, thereby learning his location and tracking him down.

Deathdealer_16 turns out to be Solomon (Asa Butterfield), a young man living in a mobile home in north Texas with his loving grandmother (Becky Ann Baker).

Solomon works at a gas station convenience store. His formerly incarcerated dad Beaver (Chris Bauer) is running a marketing scam involving ostensibly testosterone-enhancing powder. Beaver is bullying Solomon into becoming a salesman for the product, which means the young man has to lay out cash to purchase canisters for sale.

For a while, OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR plays as an offbeat, mismatched buddy comedy, where a collision of economic class, social conventions and intentions simultaneously enthrall and baffle Balthy and Solomon.

But, to paraphrase the famous Chekhovian quote, if a weapon shows up in the first act, we have a pretty good idea it won’t be absent by the third act.

To the credit of director Oscar Boyson and his co-writer Ricky Camilleri, we can’t predict where this is all heading, except that general disaster looms. They manage to cover a great deal of credible ground in examining a whole bunch of factors (none of which involve classroom bullying) that can lead to guns being fired.

The filmmakers also generate consistent suspense about Balthy and Solomon’s motivations, many of which they are unaware of themselves. As each new situation arises, we never know which way either will jump.

Martell’s ability to turn on a time and Butterfield’s capacity to start emotions in one place and evolve them so that they move into another both serve the film brilliantly, and Bauer is impressive as Solomon’s hearty conman father.

Where OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR may get into some tricky territory, at least for some, is its suggestion that a lot of people who publicly protest school shootings (or anything else) may be faking their outrage for their own purposes. That is no doubt the case with some folks, but that’s no reason to dismiss others out of hand.

Eleanor is depicted as being honorable, but so much is made of her being at the school on scholarship – and there is quasi-name-checking of a real-world Democratic politician – that it seems like OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR wants us to disregard anything, helpful or not, said by the rich. Money can and does corrupt, but it doesn’t necessarily invalidate.

However, OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR is definitely in favor of taking a closer look at why anybody says or does anything, and that is a stance worth support. It otherwise stands as a set of persuasive character studies.

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Movie Review: THE SERPENT’S SKIN

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 06:02:26 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Alexandra McVicker, Avalon Fast, Scott Major, Charlotte Chimes, Jordan Dulieu
Writers: Alice Maio Mackay & Ben Pahl Robinson
Director: Alice Maio Mackay
Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
Release Date: March 27, 2026

Writer/director Alice Maio Mackay, who opens all her movies with the onscreen credit “A Transgender Film,” has so far told stories with often psychic trans and queer protagonists fighting human bigotry and otherworldly menaces.

In THE SERPENT’S SKIN, co-written by Mackay & Ben Pahl Robinson, we still get a young trans lead – Alexandra McVicker as Anna – dealing with a monster. However, the transphobia is confined to a notice tacked to an outhouse door.

When we meet Anna, she is in her room at home, miserable and cutting herself, while she hears her stepfather calling her lazy and possibly mentally unwell to her mother.

Anna’s slightly older sister Dakota (Charlotte Chimes) comes to the rescue, literally driving in and taking her sibling to safety in the city.

Dakota has a relatively nice apartment, which she offers to share indefinitely with Anna. Anna almost immediately hooks up for a one-night stand with cute neighbor Danny (Jordan Dulieu), a local rocker who lives upstairs.

It likewise doesn’t take Anna too long to find an agreeable job at a vinyl record store run by the laidback Buz (Scott Major). When a knife-wielding thug attempts to rob the shop, Anna’s eyes glow and she causes the would-be thief to bleed from his eyes and run away.

Anna isn’t sure how she did this. She also doesn’t realize that she’s been haunting the dreams of tattoo artist Jen (Avalon Fast). Jen finds Anna, reveals that they are both what used to be called “witches,” and in no time, the two are a loving couple.

Anna isn’t sure of the extent of her powers. For her part, Jen doesn’t think she’s as magically potent as Anna. However, when Jen tattoos an Ouroboros (snake swallowing its own tail) symbol on the back of someone’s neck, trouble follows.

It’s heartening to see a transgender individual take center stage in a tale that is not about gender definition. Anna could be any other young woman on a supernatural journey, a la Buffy or Harry Potter.

The big problem with THE SERPENT’S SKIN is that the journey is so smooth. Once Anna gets over her self-injuring phase, she easily comes into her abilities. She has moments of self-doubt, but both Jen and the movie approve of Anna’s actions.

For her part, Jen talks about having devastating inner darkness, but we never see signs of it and wouldn’t know it was there if she didn’t talk about it.

McVicker is beguilingly ardent and Fast does a fine job of treading the line between seductive confidence and agonizing internal condemnation. Dulieu skillfully navigates the diverse aspects of Danny’s personality and Major is sweetness personified as Anna’s gentle boss.

THE SERPENT’S SKIN may evoke nostalgia (or even empathy) in teens and adults who used to tell themselves very straightforward stories in which they were the heroes. On the other hand, since distributed motion pictures are theoretically aimed at a wider audience, many viewers may wish for more character and narrative complexity.

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Movie Review: PRETTY LETHAL

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 06:02:16 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Iris Apatow, Lana Condor, Millicent Simmonds, Avantika, Maddie Ziegler, Uma Thurman, Lydia Leonard
Writer: Kate Freund
Director: Vicky Jewson
Distributor: Amazon/MGM Studios
Release Date: March 25, 2026 (Prime Video)

“These guys are drunk and out of shape. We are prima f*****g ballerinas.” This brief speech, delivered when the going gets tough, is perhaps all anyone really needs to know about PRETTY LETHAL. Additional relevant information is that director Vicky Jewson and writer Kate Freund (who also appears as a mob underling) figure out clever ways to incorporate classical dance moves into the violent action, and that the whole enterprise is improbable but fun.

The set-up is that a quintet of young American prima (f*****g) ballerinas and their ballet mistress, Miss Thorna (Lydia Leonard), are in Hungary, on their way to an international competition in Budapest. Then their tour bus breaks down in the middle of a forest.

With no guarantee that their transportation is going to be repaired any time soon, the contingent of dancers seek help on foot and find an isolated grand hotel. The establishment is owned by gang boss Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman), a former ballerina herself, who keeps a museum of elaborate costumes.

Devora has to pay monthly tribute to rival gangster Lothar the Butcher, who as usual has sent his jerk of a son Yuri (Julian Krenn) to collect. Conflict arises, with our ballerinas caught in the middle. After being understandably horrified, at first, they rally and use their unique skills to survive.

Should anyone not realize it, ballet dancers are, among other things, extraordinary athletes, trained to perform through pain and injury. They also have extremely powerful legs that can hold them up en pointe or rock a bad guy’s head back with a kick, depending on what’s called for in the moment.

The filmmakers find a quasi-plausible way to get all five of the young women into their white tutus and toe shoes for the bulk of PRETTY LETHAL, which adds immeasurably to the execution of the premise. Fight coordinators Remi Bakkar and Teddy Masson, fight choreographer Yann Brouet, stunt coordinator Jacob Griffin, action/stunt designer Shahaub Roudbari and their teams all deserve applause for working ballet into the physical clashes.

Each of the dancer characters has enough quirks to make her distinctive, and the performers – Maddie Ziegler as rebellious Bones, Lana Condor as entitled Princess, Avantika as accidentally stoned Grace, Millicent Simmonds as inquisitive (and deaf) Zoe, and Iris Apatow as concerned Chloe – all shine. Thurman gives Devora’s world-weariness a wry touch and Krenn is a splendid scumbag. Leonard plays the sort of caring teacher anyone would love to have.

Director Jewson and cinematographer Bridger Nielson give PRETTY LETHAL a becoming, slightly fairytale look, with sparkles in dimmed interiors, that enhances the effect.

PRETTY LETHAL is indeed pretty. More importantly, it’s pretty entertaining, and admirably fulfills its potential.

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HENRY DAVID THOREAU: Filmmakers Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers on new PBS docuseries – Exclusive Interview

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:57:25 +0000

If you don’t know much about Henry David Thoreau as a historical figure, don’t feel bad. Brothers Erik Ewers and Christopher Ewers have made a three-part, two-night documentary about the man, HENRY DAVID THOREAU, which premieres on PBS Monday, March 30 and Tuesday, March 31, and, when they started, they acknowledge they didn’t know much either. (For purposes of clarity, this interview refers to each of the brothers by their first names.)

“We had to renew our knowledge of Thoreau from high school, where we didn’t really appreciate him, let’s say, that much,” Erik says with a laugh. “And now, as adults, trying to figure out what this very dense and eccentric writer was all about.”

Both Erik and Christopher are longtime collaborators with famed documentarian Ken Burns, Christopher as a cinematographer and Erik as an editor. Erik won an Emmy for editing Burns’s 2014 docuseries THE ROOSEVELTS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY.

The brothers teamed up with one another to make their own documentary films, beginning with 2011’s UNSTUCK: THE MUSIC OF DAVID CIERI. They have formed their own production company, Ewers Brothers Productions, and together co-directed, with Burns, the documentary THE MAYO CLINIC: FAITH, HOPE AND SCIENCE and, co-directing with each other, the two-part HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: YOUTH MENTAL ILLNESS.

Christopher and Erik both get on a Zoom call from their respective separate residences in Fairfield, Connecticut, and Keene, New Hampshire, to talk about HENRY DAVID THOREAU.

The miniseries, Erik explains, originated with Burns, who is an executive producer on HENRY DAVID THOREAU, as is Don Henley of the Eagles. “I was an editor for Ken for thirty-seven years, always a film that he was making and I was editing. When Chris and I started Ewers Brothers, I was still editing for Ken, but Ken had endorsed Chris and I building our own company, one that would collaborate with him, and one that he would cultivate and help grow.”

HENRY DAVID THOREAU started as a much smaller project, the 2017 short WALDEN, Erik continues. “I got a call one day from Ken. Don Henley had contacted him and was interested in doing a twenty-minute film for the visitors’ center at Walden Pond. Ken asked us if we would be interested in making it, because Ken only does his own inside projects, doesn’t do outside work. And I said, ‘Oh, my God, we’d love to.’

“We finished the short film, and then, quite simply, we suggested to Ken and Don that Chris and I produce a film about Thoreau’s entire life, because there’s so much more to him than just Walden Pond and the quote-‘hermit’ living on the side of a lake in the woods.”

Erik adds that HENRY DAVID THOREAU has taken a good while to complete. “The initial idea for the Walden film, and I include that because we use some of the footage from that film in this one, started around 2015. And I think it took us about a year-and-a-half, two years, to complete. So, there was cinematography and research going on then, and then, while we were making HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT, we did some peripheral research, continued to read Thoreau and his journal and his essays, and then, as soon as HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT aired in November of 2022, we dove headfirst into the bigger Thoreau series.”

The voice cast for HENRY DAVID THOREAU includes George Clooney as the narrator and Jeff Goldblum as Thoreau, as well as Meryl Streep, Ted Danson, and Tate Donovan. How did the Ewers brothers attract such high-level actors?

On past projects, Christopher says that most actors came via Burns, since pretty much everyone is eager to work with him. However, “for this project, our other executive producer, Don Henley, was instrumental in making inroads to the incredible voice talent that we have for the film.”

This included as least one first choice, Christopher elaborates. “Erik and I had agreed early on that we thought that Jeff Goldblum would be the perfect voice for Thoreau, and it just so happens that I had worked with him years back on a different project, and through conversations then, I thought that he might be agreeable to it, and so he was the first one that signed on, which was wonderful.

“And from that point, Don worked his magic,” Christopher laughs. “Our narrator is George Clooney, and the first day that we met him, when we were recording his narration, he mentioned that he didn’t know very much about Thoreau, other than what everybody is taught in school. And we asked, sort of knowing the answer, how did he get associated with the project, how did he say or why did he say yes to doing the narration? And he said, ‘Well, when Don Henley calls you, regardless of what he’s asking, you say yes.’ But, as Don knew he would, he turned out to be the perfect voice for our narrator. Everybody involved really helped to elevate the project to where it is.”

When collaborating, Christopher is still the cinematographer and Erik is still the editor, but otherwise, how do they divide up filmmaking responsibilities?

“We do rock-paper-scissors,” Erik jokes, then adds, more seriously, “I think that over the years, we’ve figured out a nice working approach. We co-direct. Erik handles a lot of the script with our writer David Blistein, and it works out. [As cinematographer], I’m always behind the camera during the interviews, and Erik’s the one who asks the questions.”

For HENRY DAVID THOREAU, how did they decide who they wanted to interview?

Erik replies, “It’s a long process of reading, reading, and when we’re done reading, we do some more reading. I think the book that made the biggest difference for us, as far as how we wanted to approach this biographical story, was a book called THOREAU IN AN AGE OF CRISIS [an anthology first published in 2021]. Each chapter was by a different scholar who wrote about Thoreauvian philosophy in light of current events. It was fascinating, because we had already reread WALDEN, or actually probably for the first time,” he laughs, “and definitely a lot of Thoreau’s other works we had not read before.

“As an adult reading him, his words just scream with relevance to today. It’s just uncanny. I remember reading WALDEN and shouting to my wife, ‘I can’t believe it! He has something to say about mortgage versus rental. He has something to say about fashion, about living lives of quiet desperation’ – one of the most amazing phrases I’ve ever heard that is so true. And so, I think organically, we started that path of connecting to different scholars with different areas of expertise in an attempt to try to rassle this huge story about this very influential and eccentric author, to try and capture his entire story. So, it was really a process of discovery.”

Besides the contemporary resonance, what else did the brothers discover? The first episode, for example, discusses the paradox of Thoreau being an active abolitionist and yet socializing with people who enslaved others.

Christopher relates, “There were any number of things that were incredibly eye-opening about Henry. In high school, we were taught he was this prophetic hermit who lived and pondered life in a tiny cabin on a secluded shore somewhere in Massachusetts. He did that for two years, but there is so much more to the man that we didn’t know.

“The entire third act of his life after he left Walden was uncharted territory for us in the beginning, and I think a lot of viewers will have the same realization. He leaves Walden and he takes the experiment that was Walden back into Concord and into his life, and he goes to great lengths in scientific discovery, he lectures, he travels. Of course, he wrote most of his works after Walden. Henry truly is an onion – an individual with multiple layers that we were really only introduced to one of in primary school.”

As for the specific matter of Thoreau’s stance on slavery, Erik points out, “In the film, the scholar Rochelle Johnson, says that, ‘Yes, “contradictory” is probably an accurate description, but I prefer to think of it that Thoreau was always searching for the truth, and I think he was so obsessed with understanding the essential truth of things that he was willing to look at things from a different lens.’ And by looking at things from a different lens, sometimes that looked contradictory, but he was just trying to understand the opposing side.”

Speaking of different lenses, do the Ewers brothers see themselves as filmmakers in the style of Burns, or do they have their own style? If so, how do they define it?

Regarding Burns, Christopher observes, “You couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. We’re talking about a man who essentially reimagined the documentary film genre more than forty years ago. I think that in any creative endeavor, having a good foundation is crucial, and the foundation that we have gleaned from Ken, that he has imparted to us over many decades, is all about story and structure. We are storytellers; we don’t claim to be experts or historians or journalists. We are ultimately telling stories.

“For Erik and I, our approach has evolved. It’s important for us to make concrete connections between the history and our present moment. Serendipitously or by fate, each one of our films has come to be in a time where their message was deeply resonant.

“Our first film was about healthcare and the Mayo Clinic’s approach to it. Our second film, HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: YOUTH MENTAL ILLNESS, was about the normalization of the experience of mental health challenges, and each one aired, broadcast, at a time when that connection that we were able to make, using the past as a direct [parallel to] our current moment.”

Erik elaborates that they always seek a contemporary connection. “I think it’s important, especially when you see something resonate as much as Thoreau in his time, versus us in our time. When you see how relevant his words are, I think it’s almost an obligation to help our viewers understand their relevance today, rather than just allude to it.”

Allusion, Erik continues, would be “a perfectly valid way of doing a biographical historical documentary, to just tell the story of his life, but our experience with HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT, where we saw such a profound impact the film made on viewers because we took all these stories and brought them to the forefront in the wake of a global pandemic. And to hear the feedback, that the film actually saved lives – even Ken was saying that about the film – it put you in a place where you realize that you have an opportunity to use history and to use storytelling to really make a difference.

“I think Thoreau and his environmental philosophies, his social justice philosophies, and his living-well-find-your-true-meaningful-life philosophy, are so needed right now, we felt an obligation to contemporize, if you will, his historical story in certain strategic moments in the film, so that viewers could really be aware and perhaps even think about some of the advice that he was trying to give.”

What is to be learned from Thoreau’s going into isolation and then coming back out of it?

Christopher opines, “Walden can sometimes be confused with a sort of escape fantasy, right? But it was quite the opposite. Walden was an experiment. It was a question. Thoreau is misunderstood as running from society, when in fact he was simply taking a step away from it to gain better perspective on it.

“When he finished his time at Walden – it was only two years of his life – he left and he wrote of his departure that he had many more lives to live, and what he did is exactly that. He took the experience that he had, the insights that he gained from his time at Walden, and brought them back into society. He spent the rest of his life in his family’s pencil factory, as a surveyor, a fruitful member of society. But he always took that experience, that perspective with him back and continued to ask the serious questions about his life, about the situation of slavery, particularly in the Northern states, and the Fugitive Slave Act. He continued to ask himself, ‘How does one live a moral life in an immoral system?’

“This is where civil disobedience sprang up, this is where his work with the Underground Railroad influenced his life heavily. So, I think to dismiss his time at Walden as basically just an escape from society doesn’t do it justice. I think the lessons that we can take from his time and his experiment is that we can do the same. He believed that he could constantly reevaluate his life, make changes, change course when things stopped feeling true for him, and that’s a lesson that we all could use.”

In terms of the making of HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Erik notes that one big challenge was finding appropriate visuals to chronicle a man whose first third of life happened “before the era of photography. As storytellers, we decided, ‘You know what? As long as we’re not getting images from the 1900s or something that is truly anachronistic, as long as we’re seeking to get responsible imagery, if photographs help tell the story, so be it.’

“For his childhood, we found a lot of paintings. Winslow Homer loved to paint children doing things that were not typical of that time period. Kids didn’t play in nature that much back then. Nature was something to be feared, generally speaking, in the early 1800s, and here’s Thoreau and his brother, frolicking in the woods, because his parents encouraged them to appreciate it.

“So, we had to chase down the idea of paintings, we had to chase down ‘what is the best visual archival imagery,’ which remarkably turned out to be those stereo cards that they manufactured in the early days of photography, especially in the 1850s, when photography first came on the scene. And they’re difficult to use, because they’re teeny little images. And then Chris should speak to the cinematography that he did. We wanted to create both historical environments with props and also capture nature the way Thoreau would have seen it.”

Christopher picks up the prompt. “Live cinematography is always a big part of our projects, and Ken’s. As storytellers, we want to create scenes, whether it’s through our interviews or script-writing or narration, whatever it happens to be, that show or tell information.

“So, we went to great lengths, as best we could, to recreate, for instance, Henry’s house. He didn’t call it a cabin. We created historically accurate props. We had a great art department team that helped us do this. The idea was, of course, that we want to invite the viewer into Henry’s world, and a great way to do that, especially in lieu of actual photographic material of these places was to recreate them ourselves.”

“You had to chase down nature,” Erik reminds his brother with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Christopher affirms. “We shot for many years, in all seasons, at all times of day, in all weather, in an effort to try to see Concord, the pond, the woods, through Henry’s eyes. And it was certainly an experiment. It took us some time.

“But I think, much as I’m assuming it did in the same way for Henry, as soon as that clicked, the world opened up. The woods and the pond and the surrounding areas blossomed, and I’m not speaking metaphorically. We were able to see beauty in decaying leaves in fall, and certainly in ice patterns in the winter. We had trained ourselves to see through Henry’s lens, and I hope it shows on screen.”

The Ewers brothers are now working on a series about adult mental illness that is a follow-up to HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. Erik says, “We felt that the first HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT, which dealt with youth, was only half the story. We all worry about our nation’s youth and how they’re bearing the brunt of so many of the societal issues and family issues that they’re experiencing.

“But adults, especially as parents, or even individually, have to carry the weight of finding help, they have to be willing to find help for themselves. They probably have, in today’s day and age, more stigma than young people seem to, and a follow-up film has always been a part of our plan. We’ve already started our research and development phase. We actually finished fourteen interviews, and we’re just waiting for some more funding and we’ll dive into that.”

Was any of the exploration of mental health issues in HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT useful for HENRY DAVID THOREAU?

Erik believes it was. “It laid the founding ideas for Chris and I as far as how we want to approach Thoreau’s story, given how Thoreau was, for lack of a better word, a quote-‘antidote’-unquote to the misery and the difficult times that we face in society on so many different levels.

“Here is this individual who spent a life in introspection and looked for ways to actually take what he learned and apply it. Isn’t that awfully close to mental health? You need to have a conversation with yourself, you need to find what truly is bothering you inside, what is troubling you, you’ve got to get to the source, and then you need to reach out and look for help.

“I think Thoreau is just an inspirational model on that front, and also, I think HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT helped Chris and I really develop what kind of approach we want to take, at least to historical documentary filmmaking, and that is crossing that bridge into the present in the film, rather than just sticking to the history. I think there’s a value in that. And like Chris said, it’s something that’s different from Ken. Ken’s style of filmmaking is embedded in ours, but that’s where we found our own voice.”

It turns out that someone at a screening already asked the question of what the Ewers most hope viewers get from HENRY DAVID THOREAU. Erik shares the answer.

“Chris and I both really had to think about it. The one thing about Thoreau that I love the most is that all of his philosophies, all of his thinking, were focused on one essential thing, and that was truth. He was always looking for the essential truth of everything. And that truth was something he had to pursue, he had to actively seek.

“I think in today’s world, where there is so much misinformation and untruth, Thoreau reminds us that it falls on each and every one of us to not be swept up into that gullible nature of accepting what you read, let’s say, on social media, or even in the news, or hearing from your parents, or your friends, in all these different ways you get information. It falls on you to actually explore the truth before you can move forward with any kind of purpose and meaning. I think that is one of the biggest problems we face today, and Thoreau is such a solid reminder of that.”

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Movie Review: READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:18:34 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, Néstor Carbonell, David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood
Writers: Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy, based on characters created by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: March 20, 2026

READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME may be even more fun than its predecessor, 2019’s READY OR NOT. (Those who didn’t find the first one entertaining won’t be happy here either.)

Writers Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy and directing team Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett are back, along with lead Samara Weaving as very recently married and widowed Grace MacCaullay (she’s using her maiden name again, thank you very much).

While six-and-a-half years have passed for viewers, READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME picks up exactly where READY OR NOT ended, with a bloodied Grace in her splattered and tattered wedding gown, plus a pair of sturdy sneakers, having a cigarette on the steps while the Le Domas mansion burns behind her.

Police and paramedics arrive on the scene just as Grace collapses. She awakens to find herself in a hospital bed. Her interrogation by a cop is interrupted by the arrival of her younger sister Faith (Kathryn Newton). The siblings have been alienated for years, but Faith is still designated as Grace’s emergency contact, so here she is.

Through quick-cut flashbacks and Grace’s explanation to Faith, we are brought up to speed. Grace married Alex Le Domas who, in fairness, warned her that his family was unusual and intense. What Grace didn’t know was that the whole incredibly wealthy lot of them were Satanists.

Due to a rule in their law book (which is one huge tome that we see here), Grace had to participate in a post-wedding card game and drew one that hadn’t been seen in thirty years. The card, alas, meant that the whole Le Domas clan had to hunt Grace to the death, although she would win if she survived until daybreak. Luckily for Grace, she made it. Unluckily for those Le Domases who hadn’t been killed during the hunt, Grace winning meant that they lost, which in turn meant that they spontaneously and bloodily exploded.

Before Faith has too much time to think her big sister has either come up with the world’s worst alibi or is certifiably insane, or both, things occur that support Grace’s story.

Before Grace’s marriage, there were six ruling Satanic families in the world, a group presided over by Chester Danforth (David Cronenberg – yes, that David Cronenberg). By the time READY OR NOT 2 really gets going, there are only four.

As the ever-genteel Lawyer (Elijah Wood) explains to the gathered clans, plus captives Grace and Faith, Grace’s survival has triggered a new clause in the rules. As before, if Grace survives until dawn, she wins. If any of the heads of the four households can kill her, that person becomes the ultimate boss and de facto rules the planet.

Having families from Spain, Hong Kong and England, along with Danforth’s adult twin American offspring Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy), allows for a wide variety of personalities, attitudes and techniques. There are also bylaws about who can use what weapons and why members of one clan cannot (even accidentally) take out a member of another. Since absolutely nobody was prepared for the possibility of a victim surviving a hunt, there’s also a slight leveling of the playing field.

READY OR NOT 2: HERE IS COME is all high energy, plentiful gore and smart dialogue, with splashes of brutality and real feeling. The filmmakers deserve special plaudits for figuring out how to keep Grace in a wedding gown throughout nearly the whole movie and designing a spectacular and apt climax, in addition to employing the consistently amusing Wood to fill us (and everybody else) in on what must be known.

Weaving and Newton both lean into the complex bond between their characters, at the same time they exhibit just the right amount of comedic outrage and exasperation at their absurd but dire straits. They also excel at the kickass aspects of the action.

Gellar aces Ursula’s burdened upper-class angst and Hatosy makes Titus alarmingly vicious.

The set pieces are plentiful and wild, the pacing is fast and bracing. READY OR NOT 2 proves to be put together with fine skill and true affection for the genre.

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Movie Review: TOUCH ME

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:18:27 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris, Marlene Forte, Paget Brewster, Ashley Lauren Nedd, JJ Phillips
Writer: Addison Heimann
Director: Addison Heimann
Distributor: Yellow Veil Pictures
Release Date: March 20, 2026 (New York theatrical); March 27, 2026 (wider theatrical), April 2, 2026 (on demand/digital)

In TOUCH ME, written and directed by Addison Heimann, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) have an extremely co-dependent platonic relationship. They’ve lived together for five years. Craig hates himself so much that he needs Joey to constantly reassure him that he’s not worthless. Joey works low-paying jobs, when she does work, and needs Craig (who is gay) to keep her sheltered and fed. They both drink in excess.

After Joey has been gone for a while, only to return barefoot and bloodied, Craig has paid for her to have immersion therapy. In this particular psychological treatment, the patient tells an invented fantasy story that encapsulates a real traumatic event.

Joey’s therapist (Ashley Lauren Nedd) listens through a monologue that we recognize partway through as literal (rather than made-up) exposition. Long story (as short as can be made here), Joey met a man calling himself Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), who claimed to be an extraterrestrial.

Brian invited Joey for a stay at his isolated, opulent desert compound, where he proved that he was indeed an alien. His touch can clear human minds of pain, anxiety and any other distressing thoughts.

This was intoxicating for Joey. However, when they had sex and she overheated to the point she feared her head would explode, she fled back to Craig’s.

However, a plumbing crisis that neither Craig nor Joey can pay to fix has Joey turning back to Brian, who is only too happy to welcome her again with Craig in tow.

While both Joey and Craig are accepting of Brian’s real tentacled physical form – they’ll put up with practically anything for a touch from what Craig calls Brian’s “heroin skin” – issues mount up.

These include but are not limited to Craig’s attraction to Brian, lies that Joey and Craig have told each other and themselves, whether or not Brian is telling the truth about various things, what kind of hidden agenda Brian’s human assistant Laura (Marlene Forte) has, and whether Brian may be dangerous.

It’s probably no accident that Brian looks like the conventional portrait of a white Jesus, which goes with his beatific persona. Like all the main characters, Brian has multiple sides, which Pucci enacts with wit and just the right amount of the requisite diverse qualities.

In fact, filmmaker Heimann and his cast deftly handle all the turns and nuances and individual quirks the script throws at them. Although we can see that both Craig and especially Joey can be downright hateful at times, somehow the writing and Dudley and Gavaris’s performances keep us pulling for them to snap out of it.

Forte likewise traverses Laura’s outer and more secret self with assurance, and Paget Brewster has a notable scene as an entitled coffee shop patron.

TOUCH ME is maybe a little harder on Joey and Craig than we might be – yes, they are incredibly needy and should get out of their own way, but they have also been fulfilling their unstated obligations to each other. One of the main metaphors TOUCH ME goes for therefore is a bit unearned, though we can see how it applies in the broad strokes.

Otherwise, TOUCH ME is consistently clever and engaging. It even addresses (if not answers) lingering questions we may have by the end. It is suspenseful enough that we genuinely want to know how it will work out, tentacles, blood, resentments and all.

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Movie Review: TOW

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:18:21 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Rose Byrne, Dominic Sessa, Demi Lovato, Simon Rex, Elsie Fisher, Corbin Bernsen, Ariana DeBose, Octavia Spencer
Writers: Brant Boivin & Jonathan Keasey
Director: Stephanie Laing
Distributor: Roadside Attractions/Vertical
Release Date: March 20, 2026

TOW informs us up front that there are “1-3 million vehicular residents [i.e., people living in their cars and trucks] across the country on any given night.” It goes on to note that it is “inspired by a true story,” which it underscores by showing us three of the real-world principals under the closing credits. Two of these, Amanda Ogle and Kevin Eggers, are executive producers on the movie, as are several of the cast members.

We meet Amanda (as played by Rose Byrne) as she is preparing, in her ancient Toyota Camry, for a job interview. Her pink steering wheel cover speaks of femininity, while her boots suggest toughness.

After Amanda stands up for herself quietly but angrily at the end of the humiliating and unsuccessful interview, we learn a little more about her life circumstances.

Amanda adores her teen Avery (Elsie Fisher), who is living in Utah with their father and stepmother. However, Amanda can’t bring herself to admit to Avery that she’s jobless and apartmentless, with the result that Avery thinks their mom has a cool Seattle lifestyle and just doesn’t want them to visit.

Amanda goes on another job interview as an assistant at a dog grooming salon. (She has a veterinary technician license, although not a college degree.) Part of the gig is picking up and dropping off the dogs, which of course requires a car.

After the interview, the car, with everything Amanda owns, is not where she last parked it.

We then get an onscreen count, starting with Day One, as Amanda’s ordeal progresses.

The police notify Amanda that they’ve found her car, apparently stolen for a joyride. It has been recovered and is waiting for her at an impound lot.

Amanda goes to the lot, where she is informed that towing and storage costs are about $270, which she doesn’t have and has no way of obtaining.

What follows is an interesting and credible (if bizarre) legal case that illustrates not only Amanda’s tenacity and initiative, but also how the system regularly makes it just about impossible for the impoverished to improve their situations, regardless of how hard they try.

As the lot storage fees quickly mount to over $20,000, Amanda gets a sympathetic judge when she represents herself in court, but that is not nearly the end of the matter.

Amanda finally teams up with pro bono attorney Kevin (Dominic Sessa), who takes on the reprehensible corporation that owns the tow yard, represented by a consummately dismissive attorney (enacted with the right mixture of boredom and contempt by Corbin Bernsen).

Director Stephanie Laing and screenwriters Brant Boivin & Jonathan Keasey have no trouble persuading us of any of this; it all appears depressingly likely.

There is a large subplot with Amanda’s time at a church-run women’s shelter, where presumably historical liberties were taken with her peers, well-played by Ariana DeBose and Demi Lovato, among others, who all have their own troubles. Octavia Spencer makes the most of the stern but fair shelter director.

Byrne ably makes Amanda watchful, wary, hostile and vulnerable all at once. We can see where her desire to break away before someone can disappoint her hobbles her efforts, but we cheer on her tenacity and willingness to work towards her goals.

Sessa gives Kevin lifelike ambition and frustration, and Fisher plays Avery’s hurt and hope with feeling.

TOW is an uplifting specific look at an infuriating topic. It’s not an examination of a precedent-setting courtroom battle, just a singular fight for a reasonable individual outcome. Society is still constructed in a way that would sooner jail people for stealing bread than make bread more affordable. The rare victory over this is justly celebrated here.

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Movie Review: DEAD LOVER

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:55:05 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie, Leah Doz, Lowen Morrow
Writers: Grace Glowicki & Ben Petrie
Director: Grace Glowicki
Distributor: Cartuna x DWECK
Release Date: March 20, 2026

In an attempt to gauge relative response, this reviewer described what happens in DEAD LOVER to two separate individuals. They had identical reactions: “That’s the weirdest plot I’ve ever heard.”

Even allowing for the possibility that these two folks don’t get out much and therefore have less basis for comparison, DEAD LOVER may be the most gonzonana riff on FRANKENSTEIN ever. The competition for that title includes THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and RE-ANIMATOR, to say nothing of the earlier-this-month’s “THE BRIDE!”

The strangeness extends to both substance and style. Without spoiling some key flourishes, it can be said that it’s not exactly clear when or even where DEAD LOVER takes place. Given the costumes and accents of most characters, it appears to be nineteenth-century England.

Directed by Grace Glowicki from a screenplay by Glowicki & Ben Petrie, DEAD LOVER introduces us to the Gravedigger (Glowicki), a hardworking, lonely woman whose greatest wish in life is for someone to love who she can hold onto “forever, and ever.”

The Gravedigger’s profession means that she has a smell that most people find off-putting. But then the brother (Petrie) of a dead opera singer (Leah Doz) gets a whiff of the Gravedigger and is positively besotted.

For a while, the Gravedigger and her Lover (as the credits refer to them) are together in carnal bliss. But then tragedy occurs. The Gravedigger, who has sworn to never give up on love no matter what, begins investigating how to bring her Lover back, using techniques not dramatized before (and no, it’s not via sex, though DEAD LOVER has plenty of it).

What happens after this is likely to leave viewers progressively more slack-jawed with amazement as the film continues.

But the storyline isn’t DEAD LOVER’s only uncommon attribute. The backgrounds are generally black, with just enough furniture and props to enable the action. There’s mist when it’s needed; a wolf attack is, again, idiosyncratic. Everything is occurring within the movie’s strictly constructed own universe.

Furthermore, with the exception of Glowicki, the other three actors – Petrie, Doz, and Lowen Morrow, whose most important role is the Widower, left bereft by the passing of his opera singer wife – all play multiple characters, as they would in an ensemble theatre production.

The actors also deliver their lines as though they’re performing Shakespeare, or THE ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, or maybe an episode of FAERIE TALE THEATRE. They’re all in on the joke and on the same wavelength, never winking at us or the mounting insanity.

Interestingly, Glowicki and Petrie starred together in last month’s HONEY BUNCH, another film about the sci-fi/horror lengths to which someone may go in the name of love.

DEAD LOVER is a true indie film. There’s no sign anywhere of interference with the sensibility on display here, no indication that the filmmakers compromised what they were doing. Whether one finds it audacious and hilarious, or too mannered or too something else to be any fun, this much is certain: there’s nothing else out there quite like it.

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ST. DENIS MEDICAL: Actress Allison Tolman on the NBC comedy – Exclusive Interview

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