HOTEL PORTOFINO: Actress Natascha McElhone on Season 3 of the PBS drama – Exclusive Interview

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 08/14/2024
HOTEL PORTOFINO key art | ©2024 PBS

HOTEL PORTOFINO is now in its third season Sunday nights on PBS’s MASTERPIECE THEATRE. Created by Matt Baker, HOTEL PORTOFINO is set in 1920s Italy at the title establishment. The hotel is managed by Englishwoman Bella Ainsworth, played by Natascha McElhone, although it technically belongs to her husband Cecil (Mark Umbers). Bella and Cecil have been married for thirty years, have two living children and one deceased. Bella pours her heart and soul into the hotel; Cecil sees it only as a source of income. By Season 3, Bella would like nothing more than to get Cecil out of her […]Read On »


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Movie Review: EMPIRE OF LIGHT

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 12/09/2022
EMPIRE OF LIGHT movie poster | ©2022 Searchlight Pictures

Rating: R Stars: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones Writer: Sam Mendes Director: Sam Mendes Distributor: Searchlight Pictures Release Date: December 9, 2022 EMPIRE OF LIGHT fits perfectly within the genre of the English period romance. In the 1980s, period romances were made about the 1940s – now it’s 2020, and the ‘80s, when EMPIRE OF LIGHT is set, count as period. These films often have social barriers between the potential lovers. Here, rather than social class, it’s age (she’s in her late forties, he’s in his mid-twenties) race (she’s white, he’s Black), and mental health issues (she’s […]Read On »


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Movie Review: THE SECRET GARDEN

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 08/07/2020
THE SECRET GARDEN poster | ©2020 STX Films

Rating: PG Stars: Daisy Egerikx, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Edan Hayhurst, Amir Wilson, Isis Davis Writer: Jack Thorne, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett Director: Marc Munden Distributor: STX Films Release Date: August 7, 2020 THE SECRET GARDEN is based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel. It has been adapted for the screen many times before. So what’s the 2020 version like? Director Marc Munden and screenwriter Jack Thorne have updated the action to 1947. As subtitles explain to us, it is the “eve of Partition,” when India and Pakistan are splitting into separate countries. Imaginative little Mary […]Read On »


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Movie Review: 1917

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 12/25/2019
1917 movie poster | ©2019 Universal Pictures

Rating: R Stars: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Richard Madden, Adrian Scarborough, Claire Duburcq Writers: Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns Director: Sam Mendes Distributor: Universal Pictures Release Date: December 25, 2019 1917 is a World War I movie that (we are told by a supertitle) begins on April 6. Two young British lance corporals, Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are ordered by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) to take a message across what until recently was enemy territory. It seems that a British colonel has mistaken a German strategic retreat for an opportunity. […]Read On »


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Movie Review: MARY POPPINS RETURNS

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 12/20/2018
MARY POPPINS RETURNS | © 2019 Walt Disney

Rating: PG Stars: Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Pixie Davies, Joel Dawson, Nathanael Saleh Writer: David Magee, screen story by David Magee & Rob Marshall & John DeLuca, based on the MARY POPPINS stories by P.L. Travers Director: Rob Marshall Distributor: Walt Disney Co. Release Date: December 19, 2018 While MARY POPPINS creator P.L. Travers still probably wouldn’t be happy with the new MARY POPPINS RETURNS, the title character, as played by Emily Blunt, feels closer in spirit to Travers’s work than Julie Andrews’s interpretation in the 1964 film. This Mary Poppins is […]Read On »


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Movie Review: KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 09/22/2017
KINGSMAN THE GOLDEN CIRCLE movie poster | ©2017 20th Century Fox

Rating: R Stars: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, Sir Elton John, Channing Tatum, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Watson, Jeff Bridges Writers: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, based on the comic book THE SECRET SERVICE by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons Director: Matthew Vaughn Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Release Date: September 22, 2017  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE is a follow-up to 2015’s KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE. Like its predecessor, KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE is based on THE SECRET SERVICE comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, and is again directed by Matthew Vaughn, […]Read On »


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Movie Review: BRIDGET JONES’S BABY

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 09/16/2016
BRIDGET JONES' BABY | © 2016 Universal Pictures

Rating: R Stars: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey Writers: Helen Fielding and Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson, based on the novels and characters created by Helen Fielding Director: Sharon Maguire Distributor: Universal Release Date: September 16, 2016 In 2001, we had BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY, based on the best-selling novel by Helen Fielding about a London “singleton” who worried incessantly about her weight and getting a boyfriend, not always in that order. In 2004, the main characters from DIARY returned in BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON. That film saw the title heroine, played by Renee Zellweger, apparently happily paired […]Read On »


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Movie Review: KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 02/13/2015
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE | © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox

Rating: R Stars: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Sofia Boutella, Sophie Cookson, Michael Caine Writers: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, based on the comic book THE SECRET SERVICE by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons Director: Matthew Vaughn Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Release Date: February 13, 2015 It’s hard to know how to quantify KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE. Based on THE SECRET SERVICE comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, the movie starts off as a James Bondian superspy adventure, with big action, big violence and upper-class English people who can use strong language with […]Read On »


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Movie Review: DEVIL’S KNOT

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 05/11/2014
DEVIL'S KNOT movie poster | ©2014 RLJ Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated Stars: Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Dane DeHaan, Alessandro Nivola, Bruce Greenwood, Mireille Enos, Martin Henderson, Kevin Durand, James Hamrick, Kristopher Higgins, Seth Meriwether Writers: Paul Harris Boardman & Scott Derrickson, based on the book DEVIL’S KNOT: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE by Mara Leveritt Director: Atom Egoyan Distributor: RLJ Entertainment Release Date: May 9, 2014 Most of us would like to think that something as outrageous, unfair and blatantly ignorant as the Salem witch trials couldn’t happen in modern America. However, when three little boys were murdered in Arkansas in May 1993, there was […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: Teddy Sears on MASTERS OF SEX Season 1

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 12/15/2013
Teddy Sears in MASTERS OF SEX - Season 1 | ©2013 Showtime/Michael Desmond

Life has gotten very complicated for everyone in Showtime’s MASTERS OF SEX, Sundays at 10 PM. The drama, which has its first-season finale December 15 and has already been renewed for a second season, chronicles both the research and personal lives of Dr. William Masters (Michael Sheen) and Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) as they investigate human sexuality in the 1950s, when their quest was truly revolutionary. Teddy Sears plays Dr. Austin Langham, who as part of the Masters and Johnson study allows himself to be wired up to a graph and observed while having sex, although outside the study, he’s […]Read On »


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