HBO’s thoughtful “Perry Mason” smoothly reimagined the titular gumshoe amid a 1930s Los Angeles backdrop but also smartly configured the women in his universe as a vital force in the narrative and in many cases set the various revelations in motion.
Perry’s (Matthew Rhys) dogged pursuit of the truth, with his sharp cohort Della (Juliet Rylance) by his side, is centered on a landmark child-kidnapping trial in which a young mother (Gayle Rankin) finds herself at the heart of a Los Angeles-based tug-of-war involving politicians, police and even a mother-daughter pair of evangelicals (Lili Taylor and Tatiana Maslany).
“Women didn’t have the same kind of luxury in this essentially man’s world of the 1930s and struggled to be taken seriously,” said series costumer designer Emma Potter, who also worked on the same network’s anthology series “True Detective,” a show with similar themes. “I remembered reading...
Perry’s (Matthew Rhys) dogged pursuit of the truth, with his sharp cohort Della (Juliet Rylance) by his side, is centered on a landmark child-kidnapping trial in which a young mother (Gayle Rankin) finds herself at the heart of a Los Angeles-based tug-of-war involving politicians, police and even a mother-daughter pair of evangelicals (Lili Taylor and Tatiana Maslany).
“Women didn’t have the same kind of luxury in this essentially man’s world of the 1930s and struggled to be taken seriously,” said series costumer designer Emma Potter, who also worked on the same network’s anthology series “True Detective,” a show with similar themes. “I remembered reading...
- 6/22/2021
- by Jason Clark
- The Wrap
“You can always bring somebody back, but there’s something really nice about leaving,” says Tatiana Maslany in an exclusive interview with Gold Derby about “Perry Mason” (watch the video above), to which she will not be returning for its ordered second season. Maslany plays Sister Alice McKeegan on the first season of the drama, which HBO aired last summer and stars fellow Emmy Award winner Matthew Rhys in the eponymous role. “I’m more excited about an ending that doesn’t really end, that doesn’t necessarily have a cap to it,” explains Maslany before adding, “That felt like the story for Alice in that universe.”
Maslany muses, “The questions continue for me to this day about that character and that’s what’s so great about her.” Inspired by the contemporaneous historical figure Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, Alice is the celebrity preacher who leads the fictional Radiant Assembly...
Maslany muses, “The questions continue for me to this day about that character and that’s what’s so great about her.” Inspired by the contemporaneous historical figure Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, Alice is the celebrity preacher who leads the fictional Radiant Assembly...
- 6/11/2021
- by Riley Chow
- Gold Derby
HBO has put in development drama The Big D, from Lily Rabe and her Kill Claudio Productions and married writing/directing duo Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann.
Co-written by Buck and Schlingmann, The Big D is set during a hot and hotly contested summer in Dallas 1980. It follows a triangle of women as their lives collide to unearth a secret past involving the city’s would-be First Lady, Pat Pangburn, and her mysterious bout of amnesia. Unfolding against the backdrop of a vicious election and a city bedazzling its brutal past, The Big D explores political and sexual identity, the ramifications of living in denial, and what happens when you let go of perceived power to dig for the truth.
Rabe and and her producing partner Bettina Barrow executive produce for their Kill Claudio Productions. Buck and Schlingmann will co-executive produce.
This is Kill Claudio...
Co-written by Buck and Schlingmann, The Big D is set during a hot and hotly contested summer in Dallas 1980. It follows a triangle of women as their lives collide to unearth a secret past involving the city’s would-be First Lady, Pat Pangburn, and her mysterious bout of amnesia. Unfolding against the backdrop of a vicious election and a city bedazzling its brutal past, The Big D explores political and sexual identity, the ramifications of living in denial, and what happens when you let go of perceived power to dig for the truth.
Rabe and and her producing partner Bettina Barrow executive produce for their Kill Claudio Productions. Buck and Schlingmann will co-executive produce.
This is Kill Claudio...
- 9/14/2020
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Spoiler Alert: This article contains details from tonight’s season 1 finale episode of HBO’s Perry Mason.
It’s a mistrial and the court goes wild.
As rich and thrilling as this Great Depression noir HBO series was with sublime acting all around — especially Matthew Rhys’ turn as the P.I.-turned-attorney who overcompensates for his demons and mediocrity with his “eureka!” discoverings — the Perry Mason case of who killed baby Charlie Dodson was rather long-winded.
Sure, we weren’t fully convinced that Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) was completely innocent.
However, through various Byzantine rabbit holes explored by Mason, his gal Friday Della Street (Juliet Rylance), and his sidekick investigator Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham), our title character discovered that the Radiant Assembly of God was to blame for the kidnapping of Charlie, with Detective Ennis (Andrew Howard) orchestrating all the murders, down to taking the church’s Elder Seidel (Taylor Nichols) out.
It’s a mistrial and the court goes wild.
As rich and thrilling as this Great Depression noir HBO series was with sublime acting all around — especially Matthew Rhys’ turn as the P.I.-turned-attorney who overcompensates for his demons and mediocrity with his “eureka!” discoverings — the Perry Mason case of who killed baby Charlie Dodson was rather long-winded.
Sure, we weren’t fully convinced that Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) was completely innocent.
However, through various Byzantine rabbit holes explored by Mason, his gal Friday Della Street (Juliet Rylance), and his sidekick investigator Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham), our title character discovered that the Radiant Assembly of God was to blame for the kidnapping of Charlie, with Detective Ennis (Andrew Howard) orchestrating all the murders, down to taking the church’s Elder Seidel (Taylor Nichols) out.
- 8/10/2020
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Thrumming in the background of HBO’s many triumphs in the past five years has been the cabler’s desire to continue the particular, pitch-dark success of “True Detective.” First came two more seasons of the Nic Pizzolatto anthology, ones that with varying degrees of artistic achievement both managed to continue that show’s general vibe of anguished toil, its sense that cracking a case does little to heal the broken soul of the world. Previously this year came “The Outsider,” an adaptation of a Stephen King crime novel that continued in the feel-bad vibe; now, HBO’s quest for noir returns to the source.
With “Perry Mason,” HBO repurposes the character best known from the Raymond Burr-led legal drama of the 1950s and 1960s, depicting him both before his legal career and — crucially — before the predecessor series, an early TV procedural, indicated that every move Mason made was building towards a win.
With “Perry Mason,” HBO repurposes the character best known from the Raymond Burr-led legal drama of the 1950s and 1960s, depicting him both before his legal career and — crucially — before the predecessor series, an early TV procedural, indicated that every move Mason made was building towards a win.
- 6/19/2020
- by Daniel D'Addario
- Variety Film + TV
“No one confesses on the stand!” a friend assures the title character of HBO’s Perry Mason remake. The line is meant as a wink at Mason’s previous incarnations, where, in both the books by Erle Stanley Gardner and the Fifties/Sixties TV series starring Raymond Burr, the defense lawyer famously won his cases by putting the real perpetrators on the witness stand and talking them into admitting their guilt. But the line plays less as an affectionate nod to the past and more as an eye roll, as...
- 6/16/2020
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Rollingstone.com
The following contains spoilers for Penny Dreadful: City of Angels episode 2.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels introduces a new character, and a new sect, to the series with their second episode, “Dead People Lie Down.” In the first, “Santa Muerte,” Detective Lewis Michener (Nathan Lane) complains about crazy Los Angeles cults, after seeing a poster for a radio program, Joyful Voices. The spiritual songstress is Sister Molly, played by Kerry Bishé, and yes, she works on people like a love drug.
The show’s face of radio evangelism, Sister Molly Finnister is a popular and charismatic Christian evangelist who dreams of the normal life. She is loosely based on Aimee Semple McPherson and her Foursquare Church. McPherson was the first televangelist, except she broadcast her weekly sermons at the first megachurch the Angelus Temple over the radio. Raised on the tent revival circuit, she didn’t sing, but could speak in tongues.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels introduces a new character, and a new sect, to the series with their second episode, “Dead People Lie Down.” In the first, “Santa Muerte,” Detective Lewis Michener (Nathan Lane) complains about crazy Los Angeles cults, after seeing a poster for a radio program, Joyful Voices. The spiritual songstress is Sister Molly, played by Kerry Bishé, and yes, she works on people like a love drug.
The show’s face of radio evangelism, Sister Molly Finnister is a popular and charismatic Christian evangelist who dreams of the normal life. She is loosely based on Aimee Semple McPherson and her Foursquare Church. McPherson was the first televangelist, except she broadcast her weekly sermons at the first megachurch the Angelus Temple over the radio. Raised on the tent revival circuit, she didn’t sing, but could speak in tongues.
- 5/4/2020
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
“Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” all started with creator John Logan’s love of maps. In this case, historic maps of Los Angeles, and how they chronicle the city’s rapid growth in the early part of the 20th century.
As a matter of fact, Logan kept a colossal map of 1938-era L.A. on an easel in his office at the Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita, where much of “City of Angels” filmed this past winter. Visitors would be treated to a quick history of the area as Logan used the map — and its overlays — to illustrate what inspired him to write the new Showtime drama series.
“This show is a cartographer’s dream,” Logan says with the enthusiasm of someone who has spent many hours poring over historic files in the Los Angeles Public Library’s tremendous map collection. And in particular, what caught him was how the...
As a matter of fact, Logan kept a colossal map of 1938-era L.A. on an easel in his office at the Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita, where much of “City of Angels” filmed this past winter. Visitors would be treated to a quick history of the area as Logan used the map — and its overlays — to illustrate what inspired him to write the new Showtime drama series.
“This show is a cartographer’s dream,” Logan says with the enthusiasm of someone who has spent many hours poring over historic files in the Los Angeles Public Library’s tremendous map collection. And in particular, what caught him was how the...
- 4/23/2020
- by Michael Schneider
- Variety Film + TV
This Penny Dreadful review contains no spoilers.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels takes place half a century after the original series. Penny Dreadful was set in London during the age of gothic romance, the late 1800s. Capes were the height of fashion. The new series takes place in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1938. Zoot suits are the swingingest threads. The original featured an immortal art lover, Frankenstein’s creature and a werewolf. Now we have city planners, plainclothes detectives and smiling fascists. Penny Dreadful was steeped in a theosophical mysticism. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels prays to Santa Muerte, but is preyed upon by her sister.
Natalie Dormer, who lost her head as Anne Boleyn on the Showtime series The Tudors and married up, and down, on HBO’s Game of Thrones, plays Magda, the series’ everywoman. As the supernatural shape-shifting agent of chaos, she not only can be any character,...
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels takes place half a century after the original series. Penny Dreadful was set in London during the age of gothic romance, the late 1800s. Capes were the height of fashion. The new series takes place in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1938. Zoot suits are the swingingest threads. The original featured an immortal art lover, Frankenstein’s creature and a werewolf. Now we have city planners, plainclothes detectives and smiling fascists. Penny Dreadful was steeped in a theosophical mysticism. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels prays to Santa Muerte, but is preyed upon by her sister.
Natalie Dormer, who lost her head as Anne Boleyn on the Showtime series The Tudors and married up, and down, on HBO’s Game of Thrones, plays Magda, the series’ everywoman. As the supernatural shape-shifting agent of chaos, she not only can be any character,...
- 4/19/2020
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
The term “penny dreadfuls” was initially attributed to cheap serial literature that was instantly popular with the masses in the United Kingdom. Creator John Logan’s 2014 series, “Penny Dreadful” took the term and utilized it to create new origin stories for some of the most popular figures in Gothic literature. The show developed a cult following that remains to this day, taking an ironic twist and turning into the penny dreadfuls that inspired it.
Logan’s new spinoff uproots its Victorian London setting for 1938 Los Angeles to tell a story about murder, Chicano history, and the building of L.A.’s first major motorway, and while it’s unclear who exactly the series is meant to appeal to, the sheer power of its cast keeps things moving.
More from IndieWire'Westworld' Review: Episode 6 Puts Two Powerful Women on Opposite Tracks -- Spoilers'The Last Dance' Review: Enthralling ESPN Series Captures the...
Logan’s new spinoff uproots its Victorian London setting for 1938 Los Angeles to tell a story about murder, Chicano history, and the building of L.A.’s first major motorway, and while it’s unclear who exactly the series is meant to appeal to, the sheer power of its cast keeps things moving.
More from IndieWire'Westworld' Review: Episode 6 Puts Two Powerful Women on Opposite Tracks -- Spoilers'The Last Dance' Review: Enthralling ESPN Series Captures the...
- 4/19/2020
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
Filmmaker Alma Har’el helped conceive Time’s 100 Women of the Year issue, designed to recognize the contributions of female leaders, innovators, activists, entertainers, athletes and artists who defined the century from 1920 through 2019. Along with original portraits, the magazine will release 100 covers reflecting the era of each year.
“I don’t think Time has ever done anything this big,” “Honey Boy” director Har’el says, speaking exclusively to Variety. “They usually do one of these covers a year. We’re doing 100 of them.”
“If I felt hungry to take solace in some of the histories of some of these women, I immersed myself in it in the most encompassing way I could,” she adds. The idea was born out of Ha’rel’s frustration and a need to “do something that takes me outside of myself.”
Har’el spent much of 2019 on the awards trail discussing “Honey Boy,” a drama written by and starring Shia Labeouf.
“I don’t think Time has ever done anything this big,” “Honey Boy” director Har’el says, speaking exclusively to Variety. “They usually do one of these covers a year. We’re doing 100 of them.”
“If I felt hungry to take solace in some of the histories of some of these women, I immersed myself in it in the most encompassing way I could,” she adds. The idea was born out of Ha’rel’s frustration and a need to “do something that takes me outside of myself.”
Har’el spent much of 2019 on the awards trail discussing “Honey Boy,” a drama written by and starring Shia Labeouf.
- 3/5/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
If You Seek Aimee: Buck & Schlingmann Resurrect a Fallen Angel
Directors Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann succeed with one overarching point in their indie-ensconced portrait of the infamous Sister Aimee Semple McPherson in Sister Aimee, and it’s more to do with the systematic erasure of women’s stories, accomplishments and history than their zeitgeist centerpiece subject.
Christianity has been far from a friend to the ‘second sex,’ and look no further than the maligned narrative of Mary Magdalene or Eve’s original sin to witness the disparagement of women through the annals of oral tradition and the eventual ‘good book,’ continually misinterpreted to serve the needs of the proletariat.…...
Directors Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann succeed with one overarching point in their indie-ensconced portrait of the infamous Sister Aimee Semple McPherson in Sister Aimee, and it’s more to do with the systematic erasure of women’s stories, accomplishments and history than their zeitgeist centerpiece subject.
Christianity has been far from a friend to the ‘second sex,’ and look no further than the maligned narrative of Mary Magdalene or Eve’s original sin to witness the disparagement of women through the annals of oral tradition and the eventual ‘good book,’ continually misinterpreted to serve the needs of the proletariat.…...
- 9/29/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s hard to keep up with a movie that is constantly changing its story. It’s even harder when that story is stranger than fiction and may even be fiction — but about a real person. Such is the case of “Sister Aimee,” writers-directors Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann’s (“Canary”) film that scrambles together a mix of rumors and fantasies about notorious evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. But the finished product fails to say much about these tales.
It’s worth noting that a woman who is actually able to control her narrative, even filling it with lies, without it being usurped by a man’s perspective in any era is an extraordinary feat. But that’s especially true in 1926, when we first meet Sister Aimee as she’s wrapping up yet another breathless healing service where she miraculously cures her subject while remaining stupendously dissatisfied. She’s craving something...
It’s worth noting that a woman who is actually able to control her narrative, even filling it with lies, without it being usurped by a man’s perspective in any era is an extraordinary feat. But that’s especially true in 1926, when we first meet Sister Aimee as she’s wrapping up yet another breathless healing service where she miraculously cures her subject while remaining stupendously dissatisfied. She’s craving something...
- 9/26/2019
- by Candice Frederick
- The Wrap
While the story of the 1926 disappearance of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson may not be known by many, there’s more than enough in the life story of this cult figure to fill many movies. For their narrative feature debut, queer filmmakers Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann zero in on the five weeks that Semple McPherson (at one point the second most popular religious figure in the world behind the Pope) went missing in Mexico. As seen in this exclusive first trailer, the result is an often zany, satirical, and feminist musical comedy led by a radiant Anna Margaret Hollyman.
Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1926 America’s most famous evangelist is a woman. And she’s looking for a way out. Fed up with her own success, she gets swept up in her lover’s daydreams about Mexico and finds herself on a wild road trip towards the border. Based on true events.
Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1926 America’s most famous evangelist is a woman. And she’s looking for a way out. Fed up with her own success, she gets swept up in her lover’s daydreams about Mexico and finds herself on a wild road trip towards the border. Based on true events.
- 8/20/2019
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Filmmakers Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann aren’t promising the truth in their often wily, occasionally weird “Sister Aimee”: the film opens with a scroll that explains that only “5.5 percent” of what follows is real, the rest is pure imagination. Yet 5.5 percent of the duo’s chosen subject is enough to yield some jaw-dropping revelations, and even the stuff the writers and directors make up about the 1926 disappearance of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (the always-stellar Anna Margaret Hollyman) is nutty enough to fit in alongside the mythos of a religious figure who was, at one time, second only to the pope in her popularity. Despite a modern unawareness surrounding Semple McPherson and her wild life — just look at her wholly bonkers Wikipedia page! — much of it is indeed worthy of the big screen treatment, perhaps even a decade-spanning limited series.
For their snappy 87-minute feature, Buck and Schlingmann focus...
For their snappy 87-minute feature, Buck and Schlingmann focus...
- 3/12/2019
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Decades before Hollywood got serious about the need for diversity, Anthony Quinn was diversity. This month marks the birthday of the Mexico-born, L.A.-raised actor who played Bedouins, Native Americans, Soviets — and even Mexicans and Americans in his 60-year career. He was the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar, for his supporting performance in “Viva Zapata!” (1952) and won another as French painter Gaugin in “Lust for Life” (1956). His two trademark performances were in “Zorba the Greek” (another Oscar nom) and as an Italian circus strongman in Fellini’s “La Strada.”
Antonio Rodolfo Oaxaca Quinn was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 21, 1915, and began acting in 1936. His rise in Hollywood is especially remarkable considering the times. From 1929-36, the U.S.’ “Mexican Repatriation” program sent those of Mexican descent south of the border (even though many were U.S. citizens) out of fear they were taking jobs from whites. In...
Antonio Rodolfo Oaxaca Quinn was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 21, 1915, and began acting in 1936. His rise in Hollywood is especially remarkable considering the times. From 1929-36, the U.S.’ “Mexican Repatriation” program sent those of Mexican descent south of the border (even though many were U.S. citizens) out of fear they were taking jobs from whites. In...
- 4/6/2018
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.