Abe Sylvia – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

PALM ROYAL – Review by Susan Granger

June 10, 2024June 15, 2024 Susan Granger Abe Sylvia, Allison Janney, Apple TV+, carol burnett, Josh Lucas, kristen wiig, Laura Dern, Mr. and Mrs. American Pie, Palm Royale

Loosely inspired by Juliet McDaniels’ 2018 novel Mr. and Mrs. American Pie, the comedy series Palm Royale, set in the late 1960s, follows the misadventures of former Tennessee beauty queen Maxine Simmons (Kristen Wiig), a desperate social climber determined to join South Florida’s most elegant, exclusive country club. Created as a darkly comedic melodrama by showrunner Abe Sylvia, this flimsy, farcical, frivolous frolic starts out deceptively shallow but slowly builds in depth and intensity, incorporating a beached whale and an astronaut falling from the sky

Reviews

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (TIFF 2021) – Review by Pam Grady

September 17, 2021September 23, 2021 Pam Grady Abe Sylvia, andrew garfield, Michael Showalter, the eyes of tammy faye, truth-based, Vincent D'Onfrio

Jessica Chastain might be hoping that the sheer amount of makeup on her face will be good enough at awards time to garner her some nominations. In becoming The Eyes of Tammy Faye‘s Tammy Faye Bakker, there is so much coverage on the actor’s visage (really, so much that it is practically spackle) – which makes her resemble a John Wayne Gacy clown painting and which she blames for possibly forever altering her skin – that it is practically a character unto itself and certainly more animated than anything else in this needless dramatic regurgitation of the 2000 documentary of the same name. Whether all that paint will be good enough for an Oscar nod in a movie that misfires remains to be seen.