Susan Granger – Page 2 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

WEDNESDAY: Season 2 – Review by Susan Granger

August 28, 2026August 29, 2026 Susan Granger Alfred Gough, Catherine Zeta-Jones, emma myers, Isaac Ordonez, Jenny Ortega, Luis Guzman, Miles Millar, netflix, steve buscemi, Tim Burton, Wednesday: Season 2

With the Emmys approaching, attention must be paid to Wednesday: Season 2 with 12 nominations; it has become the second most-watched English language series in Netflix history – with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez with Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley. In the title role, Jenny Ortega’s nomination as Outstanding Comedy Series Lead Actress is a notable achievement in Latina representation since she’s the third and youngest Latina to receive this honor, following America Ferrera and Rita Moreno. Focusing on macabre horror, Wednesday re-visits the gothic world of the Addams family’s morbidly stoic daughter as she navigates teenage life at Nevermore Academy while sinister forces – both outside and inside the school -conspire against her.

Reviews

TED LASSO Season 4 – Review by Susan Granger

August 20, 2026August 23, 2026 Susan Granger Apple TV+, Hannah Waddingham, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Swift, juno temple, Ted Lasso Season 4

Jason Sudeikis’ hit comedy series <em>Ted Lasso</em> took a three-year hiatus – now it’s back for a fourth season. Last seen – the ever-optimistic American coach Ted left London to co-parent his young son in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. So he’s really surprised when team owner Rebecca Welton, marketing chief Keely Jones and operations head Leslie Higgins unexpectedly arrive stateside, ostensibly to see KC Current, the first stadium designed and built specifically for professional women’s sports.

Reviews

THE END OF OAK STREET – Review by Susan Granger

August 20, 2026August 23, 2026 Susan Granger Anne Hathaway, Christian Convery, David Robert Mitchell, Maisy Stella, The End of Oak Street

The End of Oak Street is – perhaps – the perfect popcorn picture to conclude the summer – an action-filled, sci-fi creature-feature. It’s 1982 in middle-class suburbia where the Platt family is celebrating an idyllic block party with their neighbors. Frustrated Denise is an aspiring novelist, Greg earns extra money delivering pizza, while the kids – Audrey and Brian – romp with their feisty dog Starbuck. The End of Oak Street is absurdly entertaining

Reviews

RIDE OR DIE – Review by Susan Granger

August 19, 2026August 23, 2026 Susan Granger amazon prime, Bill Nighy, Hannah Waddingham, octavia spencer, ride or die, Tessa Coates

Obviously inspired by Thelma & Louise , Amazon Prime’s new female-focused action-adventure Ride or Die stars Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer as unlikely best-friends on the run across Europe. Their relationship takes some explaining. Although she claims to be a forensic accountant, Judith Burton (Hannah Waddingham) is really an elite professional assassin known as Whiptail. Indeed, when we first see her, she’s a sassy, sly sharpshooter at an Austrian ski resort, deftly taking out her target, making a spectacular escape, then James Bond-like bedding a bartender. On the other hand, Debbie (Octavia Spencer), a Yale Law School graduate, is the underestimated, wily wife of a dim-witted British politician who took money from Albanian mobsters who – understandably – want it back.

Reviews

THE LAST HOUSE – Review by Susan Granger

August 13, 2026August 16, 2026 Susan Granger Greta Lee, Louis Leterrier, netflix, Noah Alexander Sosnowski, Riley Chung, the last house, walter moura

Horror has always been one of the most popular genres, beginning with Dracula and Frankenstein in the 1930s and German Expressionist films like Nosferatu in the silent era. Traditionally, ‘horror’ features a monster, perhaps supernatural, while the subgenre of ‘psychological horror’ gradually builds tension by focusing on the mental, emotional and physical states of its characters. The Last House encompasses both, opening with Arthur C. Clarke’s quote: “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean,”

Reviews

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY – Review by Susan Granger

August 5, 2026August 9, 2026 Susan Granger Chris McKenna, Destin Daniel Cretton, Erik Sommers, Jon Bernthal, marisa tomei, Mark Ruffalo, Sadie Sink, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Tom Holland, zendaya

Like many others, I was suffering from superhero fatigue – which is why I’m intrigued by the head-spinning success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, scoring the highest grossing domestic box-office weekend ever. What makes this installment different is that it’s character-driven, as opposed to the hocus-pocus of other comic-book adaptations. If you recall at the conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) begged Doctor Strange to cast a spell that would cause everyone to forget that he is Spider-Man.

Reviews

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE – Review by Susan Granger

July 29, 2026August 2, 2026 Susan Granger Alice Halsey, Crosby Fitzgerald, Jocko Sims, Little House on the Prairie, Luke Bracey, netflix, Rebecca Sonneshine, Skywalker Hughes

Loosely based on semi-autobiographical novels and Michael Landon’s ‘70s TV series, Netflix’s reboot of Little House on the Prairie is a gentle, family-friendly glimpse of American frontier life, as the Ingalls family head for Independence, Kansas, in 1869 to stake a claim for their own homestead.

Reviews

THE ODYSSEY – Review by Susan Granger

July 16, 2026August 2, 2026 Susan Granger Anne Hathaway, charlize theron, Christopher Nolan, Homer, Hoyte Van Hoytema, John Leguizamo, Lupita Nyong'o, matt damon, Robert Pattinson, Ruth De Jong, The Odyssey, Tom Holland, zendaya

Characterized by mythic storytelling, extravagant production values and brawny heroes, sword-and-sandals movies (“Ben-Hur,” “Spartacus,” “Gladiator”) have enjoyed tremendous popularity. Add The Odyssey to that list. British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, collaborating with Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and production designer Ruth De Jong, envisions Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old, nonlinear epic poem as a weary Greek warrior’s tortuous journey home. Filled with challenges and conflict, it can be viewed as an exciting, episodic adventure saga or, delving deeper, as an allegory about the consequences of temptation in a man’s spiritual quest for identity and enlightenment.

Reviews

TOY STORY 5 – Review by Susan Granger

June 23, 2026June 24, 2026 Susan Granger Andrew Stanton, animation, disney, gci, joan cusack, pixar, Scarlett Spears, Taylor Swift, tim allen, tom hanks, Toy Story 5

The battle for playtime begins as traditional toys encounter tech in Toy Story 5, reuniting Woody and Buzz Lightyear, along with the rest of the CGI team, 31 years after they first burst onto the silver screen. Shy, eight-year-old Bonnie loves the fantasy world she shares with plucky cowgirl Jessie and her trusty steed, Bullseye, but she has trouble making friends with kids in the neighborhood. Because they don’t play with toys anymore. They’re glued to their digital devices.

Because they don’t play with toys anymore. They’re glued to their digital devices.

So Bonnie’s concerned parents buy her frog-themed LilyPad (Greta Lee), a kid-friendly starter tablet. Sure enough – shortly after joining a chat group, Bonnie is invited to her very first sleepover with girls from her dance class.

Reviews

THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD – Review by Susan Granger

June 21, 2026June 24, 2026 Susan Granger Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Michael Sarnoski, The Death of Robin Hood

Writer/director Michael Sarnoski takes a dark, revisionist view of the famed medieval folk hero in The Death of Robin Hood. Gone is every remnant of Errol Flynn’s rascally swashbuckling swordsman, Kevin Costner’s brusque bowman, even Sean Connery’s middle-aged romantic version – and the adventurous Merry Men of Sherwood Forest are nowhere to be found. Instead, Hugh Jackman’s grizzled, gray-bearded Robin Hood is a snarling, solitary, self-loathing outlaw, wearily roaming the barren, muddy 13th century English countryside, tormented by a ‘stole from the rich and gave to the poor’ reputation that, apparently, bore little relevance to reality.