hbo max – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

ROOSTER – Review by Abby Perkins (Mentorship Program Critic)

March 10, 2026March 15, 2026 Guest Post abby perkins, Ali Greer, AWFJ/UNCSA MENTORSHIP PROGRAM, Charly Clive, Danielle Deadwyler, Dylan Shepard, hbo max, limited series, Rooster, Steve Carell

Parents are supposed to help their children through all of life’s struggles, especially the struggles they’ve been through themselves. However, what do you do when your child faces their biggest obstacle but you have no advice for them, since you aren’t close to getting over the same obstacle you’ve faced yourself? Rooster follows beach-read author Greg Russo (Steve Carrell), who is spending time at his alma mater after Katie, his daughter and a professor at the college, is left by her grad-student-banging husband. The HBO series’ pilot, shows a father and daughter, riddled with their own insecurities and personal issues, realizing that they are both hot messes. Rooster reminds us that everyone is living life for the first time.

Reviews

MOUNTAINHEAD – Review by Susan Granger

June 16, 2025June 23, 2025 Susan Granger hbo max, Jason Schwartzman, Jesse Armstrong, Mountainhead, Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell

It was inevitable that Succession writer/director Jesse Armstrong would have more to say about how power corrupts – which is why he made Mountainhead – a satire in which four nihilistic Silicon Valley tech titans meet to decide the fate of the world. This summit takes place at the palatial glass-and-steel vacation home belonging to Hugo Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), nicknamed ‘Soupy’ – a.k.a. ‘Soup Kitchen’ – because he’s a lowly, insecure millionaire hosting three billionaires.

Reviews

DUSTER – Review by Lynn Venhaus

May 29, 2025June 2, 2025 Lynn Venhaus Asivak Koostachin, Duster, hbo max, J.J. Abrams, Josh Holloway, LaToya Morgan, Rachel Hilson, series, Warner Brothers Television

This snappy original eight episode ‘70s throwback crime drama series from Warner Brothers Television has a playful Smokey and the Bandit and Starsky and Hutch vibe, not to mention sitcom-y character quirks, which add to its madcap charm. Yet, it is serious about the crimes being investigated and there’s an abundance of grit and gruesome, although this is far from a standard procedural. It’s testosterone-heavy, but has a female beacon of light that shines bright. Rachel Hilson is sensational as FBI agent Nina Hayes, a smart young Black woman in a (mostly) white man’s criminal underworld, more specifically the 1972 labor force that featured many uncool fashions, porn mustaches and provincial sexist thinking. You’ve come a long way, baby, is right.

Reviews

JUROR #2 – Review by Susan Granger

December 31, 2024 Susan Granger Amy Aquino, Chris Messina, clint eastwood, Gabriel Basso, hbo max, J.K. Simmons, Juror #, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch

While Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 is a compelling courtroom drama, the even bigger mystery is why Warner Bros. only briefly released it in 50 theaters before it began streaming exclusively on HBO Max. Free-lance writer Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is summoned to jury duty in Savannah, Georgia on a murder case. The trial begins. After a night of drinking and arguing with her boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) leaves the roadside bar in a rainstorm. Witnesses saw them fighting and remember him chasing her out to the parking lot. Later, her corpse is found on rocks beneath a nearby bridge. Recovering alcoholic Justin is confused about the details of his own automobile accident that same night and confesses to his AA sponsor (Kiefer Sutherland) that he perhaps knows more than he’d like to admit.

Interviews

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON: Creating Mythic Characters – Jennifer Merin interviews

June 13, 2024June 17, 2024 Jennifer Merin Bethany Antonia, emma d'arcy, eve best, fabien frankel, hbo max, House of the Dragon, matt smith, Ryan Condal, Steve Toussaint, tom glynn-carney, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

HBO Max’s series House of The Dragon creates its own fantastic universe around a cast of mythic characters who weave themselves into the fabric of an immensely complicated and twisting history. The series doesn’t shoot in sequence, so Keeping track of where they are in the tale and in their personal character arcs must be a daunting task for the actors. At a recent press conference, I had the opportunity to ask them about the choices they’ve made to help them with their journey.

Reviews

HACKS Season 3 – Review by Susan Granger

June 5, 2024June 8, 2024 Susan Granger Chris McDonald, Christina Hendricks, christopher lloyd, Hacks season three, Hacks: Season 3, Hannah Einbinder, hbo max, helen hunt, jean smart, Megan Stalter, tony goldwyn

Delightfully original, Hacks is a clever character study about writing and performing comedy, bridging the generation gap with smart show-business satire. For the first two seasons, legendary Boomer diva Deborah Vance (Emmy-winner Jean Smart) has been working in Las Vegas with Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), her combative Gen-Z comedy-writer protégé. Then they go their separate ways. As the third season begins, Deborah’s stand-up TV comeback special is wildly successful, and Ava has secured a prestigious new writing gig in Los Angeles. Problem is: Deborah misses her provocative young collaborator, and Ava cannot resist the creative challenge.

Reviews

THE GILDED AGE Season 2 – Review by Susan Granger

February 2, 2024February 5, 2024 Susan Granger Carrie Coon, christine baranski, cynthia nixon, Donna Murphy, hbo max, julian fellowes, Nathan Lane, series, The Gilded Age season 2

The second season of Julian Fellowes’ genteel, rococo soap-opera known as The Gilded Age finds ambitious 19th century NYC aristocrats dressed in bustles and top hats. Ambition meets its match as traditional customs collide with innovative schemes, proving that when the old rules don’t bend, something has to break, And since much of the filming took place in and around New York and Rhode Island, more than 60 of Broadway’s brightest musical stars comprise the cast, giving it a frivolous upstairs/downstairs aura – like ‘Downton Abbey Lite.’

Reviews

WE OWN THIS CITY – Review by Diane Carson

June 21, 2022June 25, 2022 Diane Carson Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, David Simon, George Pelecanos, hbo max, Jon Bernthal, Justin Fenton, Reinaldo Marcus Green, We Own This City: A True Story of Crime

Fans of The Wire know the hard-hitting, confrontational social critiques delivered by its creators, George Pelecanos and David Simon. They’ve lost none of their gritty, scathing indictment of dysfunctional communities as proved by the six episode series, We Own This City. Based on real events, to our shocking dismay, sequences immerse us in Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force.

Reviews

TOKYO VICE – Review by Diane Carson

May 24, 2022May 28, 2022 Diane Carson Ansel Elgort, hbo max, Jake Adelstein, Ken Watanabe, series, Tokyo Vice, yakuza

Tokyo Vice follows a journalist probing Japan’s yakuza. A bonus of watching a series based on real events set in a foreign country is the immersion in that culture, the opportunity to learn customs while being entertained. This holds true for the HBO series Tokyo Vice based on American Jake Adelstein’s 2009 memoir of his journalistic days on the crime beat at the fictional, daily Meicho Shimbun newspaper.

Reviews

NOT SO PRETTY – Review by Martha K Baker

April 18, 2022April 24, 2022 Martha K. Baker (Archived Contributor) Amy Ziering, beauty industry, Dick Kirby, documentaries, Dr. Leah Gordon, hbo max, Keke Palmer, Not So Pretty, series

Award winning documentarians Dick Kirby and Amy Ziering instill trust in this educational series Remember that feeling of horror and betrayal while witnessing chief executive officers of major tobacco corporations declare, man for man, that cigarettes are not harmful? Similar scenes are played over and over in Not So Pretty, a series of four half-hour investigative documentaries that tear apart the beauty industry. Not So Pretty moves swiftly and carries a bruising punch.

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