Ran Hinrichs – Google

American Idol is American. From nowhere, young men and women step forward, guitar in hand, dreams in their head, and loving families waiting to cheer them on. We love the struggle, the win. We adore the talent, and the humor. America is free, and American Idol makes it even freer. I cry so many times - watching so many people rise, rise, rise. Even the ones who go home, rise in their own eyes. American Idol is American.

I’ve seen a lot. The Medici. The Tudors. Game of Thrones. 100. The Expanse. I’ve watched Great Courses. I’ve seen Camelot told in so many different ways. The Last Kingdom rises above those in so many ways. The story is close to the truth, so it can be researched and reimagined with the author, Cornwell, whose name itself sounds episodic. The hero is a mixture between Dane and Saxon with an eye to the future, and whose children are the future. The film is relevant today - when pandemic devastation feels as nominal as Viking raids, and Welsh armies on the rampage. The characters grow in depth as well as number, so you are pushed forward like a shield wall. The costumes are memorable, in fact, emblematic. The honor and savagery of both peoples boils my own legendary blood. As a watcher, I am more of a participant, I am history itself. Most shows let me walk away from them - the Last Kingdom has sent me to Wikipedia, Oxford Press, and a renewed, most missed, immersion into European history. How does this all make me an American - Destiny is All.

Meh. Too lurid. Sure, it was sex, drugs, and lots of gay, but it’s too obvious about diversity and pretend privledge. I don’t feel any emotion for the characters. The bad screen tests should have kept off most of the actors. Parsons is brilliantly mean, Reiner can’t act, and Criss is only passable. He was typecast as gay for so long in Glee, I can’t stop thinking he’s going to swing. Peg is a strange name for a movie. Except for the steamy flesh, I think I’ll pass on a season two. Seems naive in a world of global pandemics, and more like a safe space movie for micro aggressions.