John Powers
Stories
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'The Lowdown' isn't just a good show. It's a good hang
Ethan Hawke plays a bookstore owner who moonlights as a muckraking reporter in Tulsa, Okla. Though The Lowdown occasionally meanders or misfires, every episode of the FX series is bracingly alive.
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'Mussolini: Son of the Century' is a flashy take on how dictatorships happen
A new eight-part series by MUBI chronicles the ferocious rise of the Italian dictator. While the show is a bit too eager to make Mussolini entertaining, the story it tells couldn't be any more timely.
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'Butterfly' is a frustrating spy thriller with a few too many twists
Daniel Dae Kim stars in a thriller about a spy who comes out of hiding to save his long-lost daughter. But instead of personal revelations, the series gets mired in plot twists and shoot-outs.
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A dogged reporter takes on a mysterious cabal in 'The Diary of Lies'
Philip Miller's sinister thriller is set in a Great Britain that's lost its bearings. But even when she's terrified, fictional journalist Shona Sandison will always risk everything to get the story.
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'Code of Silence' is a twisty crime series with an unsentimental take on deafness
A new BritBox series centers on a deaf woman who works in a police station, and whose lip-reading abilities come in handy when the precinct needs help interpreting surveillance footage.
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You'll find a gripping new internet thriller in the 'Cloud'
The internet and its discontents run wild in a new film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a prolifically offbeat Japanese filmmaker who's spent the last four decades putting subversive spins on traditional genres.
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'Endling' is a shape-shifting debut that takes on heavy themes with humor
Maria Reva's virtuosic novel starts out as a straightforward story about a Ukrainian biologist, but morphs into a comic take on war, the mail-order bride business and the plight of snails.
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Cold case mystery 'Dept. Q' focuses more on the characters than crime
An Edinburgh police detective and a team of misfits search for a woman who vanished several years earlier. Critic John Powers says the byplay of characters makes Dept. Q worth watching.
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'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' doesn't live up to its namesake
Laura Piani's amiable new romance is weighed down by all its allusions and borrowings — and ultimately fails to deliver on Austen's wit.
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Mission: Impossible's overblown 'Final Reckoning' still thrills
The two hour, 49 minute conclusion to the seven-sequel franchise is self-congratulatory and inanely plotted. But, as always, it's fun to watch Tom Cruise, now 62, execute eye-popping stunts.
