Election year: Time for ‘Show of Shows’
Politics not only stirs the blood of millions of Americans, it kindles a batch of television shows in this overly dramatic time of triple threats: the pandemic, exaggerated wildfires and blow-by-blow hurricanes, followed by catastrophic floods.
Nicole Sperling, media and entertainment reporter wrote in The New York Times, “Hollywood rarely shies away from politics. This election cycle, however, a plethora of movies, documentaries and TV mini-series are hitting the marketplace with immediate relevance.”
The curtain went up with “The Comey Rule,” an excellent exposition about the steamy life in the government halls. The four-hour miniseries stars Jeff Daniels as James Comey.
The production features a realistic mix of actors and real life politicians with actual, heady dialogue from the players.
The documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney rushed his feature-length film, “Totally Under Control” as an indictment of the Trump administration’s handling or mishandling of the Coronavirus tragedy.
One of the most respected word smiths, Aaron Sorkin, wrote “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” available on Netflix.
Amazon delivered a documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy.”
HBO will show “537 Votes,” a documentary about the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Amazon is to start screening “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm,” starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the clueless Kazakh journalist Borat.
Showtime will show Alexandra Pelosi’s “American Selfie: One Nation Shoots Itself,” an examination of the country’s hyperpartisan landscape over the past 12 months.
“Us Kids,” a documentary centered on the teenagers turned activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the March for Our Lives movement, will become available via Alamo Drafthouse Virtual Cinema on Oct. 30.
“I can’t think of any writer-director who ever had the opportunity I had, to write about the collapse of a building while it was still collapsing,” said Billy Ray, who began working on “The Comey Rule” in 2018 when Comey, the former FBI director, released his memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”
The mini-series, which features Brendan Gleeson as President Trump, generated mostly positive reviews, and the first episode was seen by 2.5 million people across various platforms and the second by 2.1 million.
HBO Max has already aired “The West Wing Special,” a toast to one of the most engaging Washington D.C. stories about fictional life in the White House.
Sorkin’s “Chicago 7” is propelled by the nationwide protests this summer. Sorkin’s meant-forthe-moment dialogue has Abbie Hoffman, one of the Chicago activists, say when he testifies during the trial, “I think the institutions of our democracy are wonderful things which right now are populated by some terrible people.”