TV Series of the Month – Big Love

This month’s TV Series: Big Love (2006-2011)

This HBO drama is about Bill Henrickson and his three wives Barb, Nicolette and Margene and how they navigate in modern Salt Lake City where polygamists are treated as outcasts (especially given polygamy’s shared past with the Mormon religion). Bill and his wives, however, just want to raise their children in a happy home and be productive members of society – they also hope that their secret will never get out.

The series was created by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, who have since followed it up with another on HBO: the comedy Getting On.

Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin star in the series. The main cast also includes Douglas Smith, Grace Zabriskie, Matt Ross, Joel McKinnon Miller, Amanda Seyfried, Shawn Doyle, Melora Walters, Mary Kay Place, Harry Dean Stanton, Daveigh Chase, Bruce Dern, Tina Majorio, and Mireille Enos. Big Love has some great supporting performances from Anne Dudek, Aaron Paul, Branka Katic, Zeljko Ivanek, Adam Beach, Patrick Fabian, Ellen Burstyn, and Sissy Spacek as well.

Big Love ran for five seasons, seemingly getting darker and darker as the Henrickson family finds it harder and harder to stay hidden in plain sight. The series is filled with great characters and drama that really pulls the viewer in. While it is not one of HBO’s very best, it is still a very good show and well worth checking out for fans of family dramas.

Trailer: Here

Available on: DVD and Video On-Demand

Movie of the Week – Magnolia

Movie of the week: Magnolia (1999).

The ensemble drama focuses on a group of people living in the San Fernando Valley.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson went to a different level with his filmmaking with his third film Magnolia (expanding on the ensemble idea crafted and grown in Hard Eight and Boogie Nights). The style of Anderson’s directing and his fantastic writing give the film so much emotional depth and resonance. It is an experience all cinema fans should have. Anderson has made six films to date, and while There Will Be Blood and The Master (his two latest) might be is best, Magnolia is his first great film.

Anderson worked with many of his frequent collaborators on the film, including composer Jon Brion (three Anderson films), cinematographer Robert Elswit (five Anderson films) and production designers William Arnold (two Anderson films) and Mark Bridges (all six Anderson films).

The great and diverse cast features Anderson frequents Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Alfred Molina, Melora Walters, Luis Guzman, Ricky Jay, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well as stars like Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, and Felicity Huffman. Also, look out for cameos from Patton Oswalt, Thomas Jane, Clark Gregg, and Jim Beaver.

The 1990s featured a few brilliant ensemble films that changed filmmaking (The Player, The Thin Red Line, Boogie Nights, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heat, and Reservoir Dogs), but two stand out above the rest: Pulp Fiction and Magnolia. The film was nominated for three Oscars including Best Supporting Actor (for Tom Cruise) and Best Writing. It is among the films that are mandatory viewing for those looking to have a strong working knowledge of film history/aesthetics, auteur filmmakers and the great films of the 1990s.

Trailer: Here

Available on: Blu-ray, DVD and Streaming