Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
MY SPY
Amazon Originals

MY SPY finds hardened CIA operative JJ (Dave Bautista) recently demoted do due his extreme soldier actions during sensitive CIA operations, and when reassigned to a basic apartment stake out finds himself constantly challenged by a young Sophie, (Chloe Coleman) who he as been sent to surveil along with her mother Kate. Sophie, being very tech savvy, uses those skills to discover JJ’s surveillance operation after finding hidden cameras in her apartment. Sophie convinces JJ to spend time with her and teach her to be a spy in exchange for not blowing his cover, but JJ finds he’s no match for Sophie’s disarming wit and charm.

JJ’s boss Kim (Ken Jeong) had faith in JJ’s ability to defend the operation as a soldier, but was consistently challenged with JJ’s lack of ability to understand the subtleties of working undercover operations, so assigned JJ along with his tech guide Bobbi (Kirsten Schaal) to stake out a mother and daughter remotely connected to a nuclear arms deal (the recently deceased husband/father’s brother, Uncle Marquez, being the actual person of interest).

JJ and Bobbi setup operations in a nearby apartment, then setup cameras and listen devices to remotely monitor Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and her 9 year old daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman). Sophie was quite precocious and actually walked into the undercover operation when JJ and Bobbi were distracted and decided to film them to basically blackmail JJ into teaching her the craft of being a CIA agent.

Unfortunately for JJ, Sophie had her own clever crafty ways and was constantly outsmarting JJ, like when he was trying to train her to get by him and while suggesting a distraction Sophie immediately tipped over JJ’s fishbowl, which sent him clamoring for his beta fish Blueberry, the only personal relationship he had in his life.

While JJ trained Sophie the CIA way, Sophie helped JJ to be more of his sensitive self, and in seeing this she decided that JJ was be a good fit for her mom Kate, so setup a date by breaking a water pipe and asking JJ to help her mother. Bobbi, discovering this through watching them under surveillance, warns JJ that he’s not only compromising the operation, she also shares her disappointment because she views JJ as her hero, and can’t seem to get him to teach her anything about his soldiering ways.

Marquez, the nuclear arms dealer, finally does show up at the apartment, believing that his brother had hidden the plans for the bomb with their pet dog and does actually find a USB drive in the collar, so decides to kidnap Sophie to help insure a safe getaway and headed to the airport to fly his private plan out of the country.

Of course JJ is not going to let that happen, especially with Sophie in danger, so he disables the plane on the runway by slashing the tire, and trades Sophie for the safety box thought to contain the USB drive. Sophie, with her newly acquired skills, thwarted her uncle’s plan by getting the USB drive when no one was looking and Marquez met his demise in a fiery explosion.

Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman are a great match for this cute, charming, action comedy.

Rated: PG-13 (for action/violence and language)
101 minutes

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
Hollywood
Netflix Originals

Hollywood is the story of a group of young, aspiring actors, writers, and directors during post World War II who meet in Hollywood and together make their Tinseltown dreams come true. The series is mainly focused on handsome Jack Castello (David Corenswet) who decides that his dream is to become a movie star, so he moves from middle America to Hollywood and through life’s hard knocks eventually becomes a feature motion picture leading man.

With extras work being very scarce at the time and needing to provide a life for his wife and twins on the way, Jack takes a job at the Golden Tip gas station, owned by Ernie West (Dylan McDermott) but quickly discovers there’s more to the job than pumping gas. If a customer drove up to the pump and asked to go to Dreamland, that meant they weren’t there for gas, but for sexual encounters paying big money to both Ernie and his crew. Though Jack didn’t like the work, he was able to make important connections to further his career.

Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope) was a screenwriter who had just written a movie about the life and tragic death of a aspiring actress named Peg, which is what he named the movie. The screenwriting business was difficult to break into, especially for a young black man during the Jim Crow era, but Archie was supported in his efforts by his friend and aspiring director Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss). Raymond had already found the perfect lead actress for the part, his girlfriend Camille Washington (Laura Harrier), who was also black.

Young Rock Hudson (Jake Picking) also began his acting career during this time under the management of lewd talent exec Henry Willson (Jim Parsons) who was keenly aware of Hudson’s secret homosexual lifestyle and in a predatory manner bartered sexual favors for film opportunities with Hudson and his other clients.

Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner), owner of Ace Studios, was very racist and said he would not have a black woman lead, and that though he would produce the movie, he would not allow a black man to be credited as the writer. Ace fell ill ending up in care at home in a coma, leaving the studio to be run by Dick Samuels (Joe Mantello) and Ellen Kincaid (Holland Taylor ) who were both very interested and pleased in producing a movie with a black writer and lead actress.

The movie became stalled when Ace’s attorney blocked the production of Peg if any blacks were involved, though after a visit from Ellen’s dear friend Eleanor Roosevelt, who shared she was saddened at the racism she witnessed across the south and that there was a real opportunity for real change, Dick Samuels and Ellen Kincaid decided Peg must be produced and even changed the ending to create a more empowering story for young black women.

Hollywood explorers the rampant racism and sexual harassment that was happening during a time where it was common place for people to have sex in order to get a role or to even get a manager to represent them. Ultimately through many coincidental connections everybody’s dreams come true and the movie is renamed Meg, ending up winning top Oscars in all categories including best writing and best actress, a historic event for blacks in Hollywood.

7 Episodes – 45 minutes

by Tony Rizzo

Time doesn’t go backward, it only goes forward. The movie industry will take a long time to recover from the effects of our pandemic, and it will never be the same again.

Movie studios and producers hate giving up half their profits to movie theaters to show their films. So when theaters closed, by government decree, it gave the studios a chance to test the waters. The first film made for theaters that premiered on-demand was “Trolls World Tour,” which brought in a big bounty. Then the new $65 million Chris Hemsworth film “Extraction,” which was to premiere in theaters April 24, instead made its debut on Netflix and was viewed by 90 million households in the first four weeks.

That’s not to say films made in 3D or IMAX can be streamed first, since their charm is big screens and special effects. Which is why the fourth G.I. Joe epic was instead pushed to Oct. 23 in theaters. This reboot is called “G.I. Joe: Snakes Eyes,” with “Crazy Rich Asians” star Henry Golding in the title role. You probably remember that Channing Tatum starred in the original (which grossed $302 million) and Dwayne Johnson in the sequel, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” (which grossed $678 million). Naturally there’s already a fourth film being prepped, “G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant,” though no star has been announced for this one.

Four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan stars in director Wes Anderson’s new film “The French Dispatch.” She’ll again be paired with Timothee Chalamet (as in “Little Women,”), as well as four Oscar-winning actors: Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton and Jeffrey Wright. Chalamet, meanwhile, has a date with “Dune,” the reboot of the classic Frank Herbert science-fiction novel, premiering Dec. 18.

Superstar Harrison Ford, now 77, recently had his third flying close call (that we know of). In 2015, he crash-landed a vintage World War II plane on a golf course in Los Angeles. He was lucky he was only “battered but OK.” Then in 2017, he landed on a taxi runway after he flew over a jet and again was unharmed. Most people were under the impression Ford was going to stop flying. Yet here we are today, hearing Harrison is “under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration over an incident that happened at a Southern California airport.” He apparently was piloting his light plane and crossed a runway where another aircraft was landing. Ford acknowledged the mistake and apologized by saying, “I misheard an instruction from air traffic control.”

Ford is a true superstar, and in an era where we have so few, we need him healthy and in one piece so he can be beaten to a pulp in the new Indiana Jones epic!

(c) 2020 King Features Synd., Inc.

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS
Netflix Originals

Premiering in the Netflix Top 10 over the weekend, HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS is narrated by Nick Offerman and features actors, comedians, musicians and other well-known personalities including Deepak Chopra, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller, Rosie Perez, Sting, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, ASAP Rocky, Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, to name a few who share their personal views and experiences involving psychedelics of all sorts including LSD, mushrooms, peyote and DMT.

A large group of A-list comedians and celebrities share some very interesting personal experiences that are re-enacted with 70s style animation. The documentary also shares information from scientists and other professionals regarding the use of hallucinogens for recreational use, as well as sharing pioneering techniques using psychotropic drugs to treat depression, addition and help terminal patients embrace mortality.
Viewers learn of the pro and cons, good trips vs. bad trips, with vibrant colorful animation and comedy poking fun at stigmas from the past such as playing related old 60s newsreels and changing “The More You Know” educational PSAs to “The More You Trip” with messages like “Don’t drive, Don’t look in the mirror, Control your set & setting, Do look in the mirror”. Scenes alternate between comedy and science

Sting
“When you have a bad trip, and I’ve had many, you realize it’s just what you needed. Sometimes it kicks your ass and sometimes you have to have your ego taken down. On the other hand, you can get immensely rewarding experiences full of love and support ….a connection to the planet. It balances out.”

Dr. Charles Grob – Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA
“I’m a researcher investigating the potential for a hallucinogen treatment model to heal psychiatric illness or heal addiction. I’ve also conducted the next DEA approve study where we have permission to use the alkaloid of hallucinogenic mushrooms psilocybin in a treatment model for individuals with advanced stage cancer who have reactive anxiety. Over all, their quality of life improved noticeably.”

Sarah Silverman
“I’ll be honest, I don’t remember having a conversation about it, I don’t remember anything other than he handed it to us,and we just went “boop,” put it right in our mouths. Didn’t think a thought about it. Forty-five minutes later… What was that, was that acid we took? I don’t feel anything. It’s always when you say I don’t feel anything is usually the tipping point. Do I feel anything. What is feeling. What is feeling anything. Oh, this is what tripping on acid is like.”

HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS in an entertaining, educational documentary that shares insightful information and detailed experiences that those who know can relate to, and those who are inexperienced can find some interesting and intriguing aspects regarding the uses of hallucinogenics.

Rated: NR
86 minutes

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
Upload – Amazon Originals

Upload is a dark comedy with witty dialog that centers around death and the futuristic ways people choose to move through it. The world at this time is divided into living humans known as Bios and those who have crossed over, some choosing traditional death while those who can afford an afterlife being given the opportunity to upload their consciousness to a chosen virtual reality world for eternity where they are able to still communicate with the living world through technology.

The hitch is that you have to plan and pay for your afterlife choice before death, as a consciousness can only be transferred from a living person, with each afterlife realm driven by high priced amenities. There are several different virtual destinations for uploads, Horizen’s Lakeview being the most affluent afterlife zone. Upon arriving, afterlife guests are assigned a customer service rep referred to as their angel that they can all on for any concerns merely by calling out “angel”. The customer service rep consolidates the guest’s memory files and builds a VR visual profile from their images so guests feel a seamless transition into the afterlife, and their angels have a basic knowledge of their background and characteristics.

This futuristic world for the living Bios is completely controlled by technology with self-driving cars, 3D printed fake food and sex suits to have intimate encounters with those in the afterlife. Unfortunately for Nathan (Robbie Amell), his self driving car lost control and crashed into a large truck. In the hospital, Nathan is told that his situation is serious, and his girlfriend Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards) was there to convince Nathan to choose the Lakeview afterlife, due to her family’s wealth and future plans to reside there.

Though Nathan’s vitals had begun to recover, Ingrid got him to sign the consent, so his consciousness was removed, along with his head (an unfortunate side affect) and he was transferred to Lakeview where Ingrid had complete control over every thing Nathan did as every action had a charge, even thinking. Ingrid made sure that Nathan had an unlimited data plan so that she could always communicate with and control him.

Though angels are customer service agents working shifts, Nathan developed a special relationship with Nora (Andy Allo), a spunky rep that liked to bend the rules. As Nora and Nathan’s relationship grew, Nathan found himself wanting to be free of the financial grip Ingrid had over him and explore the possibilities with his angel Nora, which was strictly forbidden.
Nora had her own struggling in the real world of poverty and her dad being diagnosed with vape lung, not wanting to upload as Nora would prefer, rather wanting to join is deceased wife. Being a savvy tech, Nora discovered that some of Nathan’s memories were corrupted, and upon attempting to correct them discovers that Nathan’s car crash seemed intentional, and works on both sides to try to discover the truth.

Upload definitely poses questions regarding our future and the afterlife with lots of jabs at big corporations like naming the afterlife corp Horizen, Nora reaching out to her tech friend at AT&T&T and pokes at policies like the Vogue interview Ingrid does virtually with Nathan promoting Bios vs Uploads being the ultimate long distance relationship with Ingrid saying “Speaking of sex, would you like to watch one of our sex tapes. My dad got Ang Lee to edit the body cam footage from our first night together. …They’re on my office computer.”

Rated: TV-MA
10 Episodes – approx. 30 min each

Streaming Spotlight
by Cindy Summers

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness – Netflix

The Tiger King reality series has consumed the attention of over 30 million stay at home viewers and centers around the everyday life of Joe Exotic aka Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a zoo owner in Oklahoma best described as a “gay redneck, gun-toting, mullet-sporting, tiger-tackling polygamist. Joe’s GW Zoo profited most on the breeding and petting of baby tiger cubs, earning up to $10,000 per cub, though can only be used for cub-petting until 12 weeks old, thus causing Joe to accumulate over 200 tigers in his zoo, along with hundreds of other animals and a unique cast of misfit employees from very colorful backgrounds.

Joe catches the eye early on of producer Rick Kirkham, who agreed to produce his internet show Joe Exotic T.V. while also filming a reality TV show Kirckham named the Tiger King. Having an extensive background in journalism and early beginning in Inside Edition, as well as tons of professional equipment, Kirkham’s production brought Joe’s shows to the next level gaining him a larger audience of fans.

Someone who was not a fan of Joe was Carole Baskin, owner of the Big Cat Rescue Sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, having inherited millions from her husband who strangely disappeared without a trace just over a decade earlier. Baskin didn’t believe in the private ownership of big cats, and was totally against the practice of cub-petting, constantly seeking ways to use her fortune to put Joe out of business. This infuriated Joe, who constantly staged mock shootings, beatings and various ways to kill Carole on his internet show, where he was the flamboyant star bad mouthing Carole and blowing up things.

Joe had a huge ego, running for President and after losing ran for Governor of Oklahoma, passing out condoms with his picture on them. Cub-petting was a good way to attract young partners, and Joe married John Finlay when Finlay was only 19 years old. A few years later and while still married to Finlay, Joe also married 19 year old Travis Maldonado. After 11 years, Finlay left the threesome and married the office secretary who worked at the zoo. Neither Finlay nor Maldonado had been in a gay relationship prior to being with Joe, and neither actually considered themselves gay. Joe’s third husband Dillon Passage was gay and his only husband at the time.

The other well known cub-petting operation was a 50 acre preserve run by Dr. Bhagavan “Doc” Antle in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, but Doc’s facility and clientele were very upscale compared to Joe’s struggling G.W. Zoo. Antle lived with a guru in his teen years and was exposed to tigers and other animals living freely and peacefully among humans. Doc’s tours start at $350 per person and go up to $600 and more. Doc is also one of Carole Baskins targets in her quest to shut down cub-petting operations across the country.

There so much crazy here to keep up with; arson, meth mayhem, shady investors, friends turned informants, business partners burning evidence, accidental shootings and tigers tearing arms off all right in front of cameras – you just have to watch it as every episode dives deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole the world has come to know as Joe Exotic. Viewers will be thoroughly shocked and entertained by the many unpredictable twists in the series, including Joe’s jailing for hiring someone to kill Carole Baskin, and there’s an 8th episode with comedian Joel McHale hosting an aftershow interviewing various cast members online during the stay at home orders.

Rated: TV-MA (violence, language, sexual content, drug use, animal harm. intense scenes)

7 Episodes – 45 minutes each

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
3 out of 4 palm trees
Outmatched (Season 1) – Hulu & FOX.com

What do you get when two average high school students get married and have four children, three extreme geniuses and the fourth you can’t be quite sure about? You get two adults constantly Outmatched by their children. This hilarious sitcom features the everyday life of blue collar couple Mike (Jason Biggs) and Kay (Maggie Lawson) and the unique challenges they face raising three kids with genius I.Q.s that constantly challenge and confuse the simpler minds of their parents in ways you wouldn’t normally find in the usual family dynamic.

The kids all have extremely different interests and specialties: Brian (Connor Kalopsis) is 16 and gifted in science and tech but very socially awkward; Nicole (Ashley Boettcher) is 12 and has political aspirations though struggles with unfounded intellectual inferiority; Marc (Jack Stanton) is 10, gifted in music though has a strange dark side constantly sharing intellectual facts on mortality; and Leila (Oakley Bull) is 8 and doesn’t appear to have a genius I.Q. like her siblings do and her simple way of life is the only relief Mike and Kay have from constant intellectual overload.

What do these parents hope for? Usually the things most parents would avoid, like being happy to finally have to go down to the principal’s office for something Marc had done, which ended up being bullying, but not any student, he was constantly correcting and belittle the intelligence of his teacher. They escape to their “parent fort” in the basement where they drink beer and ease the stress of their mentally challenging lives with things like strip poker.

The pilot opens with them being told that their youngest son Marc is a genius, to which they respond to by breaking a cupboard door, cursing and gestures of loss and disappointment. When the woman shared it was the highest she personally tested, it starts a competition in the house over who’s I.Q. is highest with the older kids trying various ways to intellectually trick their parents into finding out their number, which was intentionally kept from them. At one point Mike senses that he’s being tricked, but can’t figure out how and calls Cay for backup.

Through the 10 episodes we meet Mike and Cay friends, Irwin (Finesse Mitchell) and Rita (Tisha Campbell-Martin) who discover much to their surprise that they are the children’s guardians during Nicole’s “Guardians of Geniuses” PowerPoint presentation. There’s also a surprise visit from grandparents Jay (Tony Danza) and Sylvia (Caroline Aaron), who also cannot relate to the genius children, Jay saying openly for that reason Leila was his favorite.

With so many challenging things happening to everyone, I just wanted to share something that was completely void of seriousness and filled with lighthearted comedy, and sure the laugh track is a bit cheesy, but the writing is witty and portrays some funny and completely unusual family situations. Watch Outmatched on HULU or www.fox.com/outmatched

Rated: TV-14
10 Episodes: 22 minutes each

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
Hunters (Season 1) – Amazon Prime Video

Inspired by true events, Hunters follows a rag-tag group of Nazi hunters living in NYC in 1977 tracking down Nazis living in the U.S. working together to create a Fourth Reich and take over the world. Released by Amazon Originals, Created and Written by David Weil and Starring Al Pacino.

Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman) was living in NYC and being raised by his grandmother Ruth, who he called Savta meaning grandmother in Hebrew. While Jonah was home but upstairs, Ruth was murdered by an intruder that Jonah was only able to catch a glimpse as he shot is grandmother and fled. At his grandmother’s funeral Jonah met Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino), a well-known millionaire who shared that he and Ruth were in the camps together during the Holocaust and that due to their experience he told Jonah to contact him if he needed anything, saying it was not charity but a debt he owed his savta.

Angry over his savta’s murder and seeking revenge, Jonah connects with Meyer and learns that along with his savta, Meyer had organized a group of Nazi hunters to seek out the Nazi war criminals brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip at the end of the war. The team is introduced to viewers in an avant-garde style Bat Mitzvah: former MI6 agent Sister Harriet (Kate Mulvany) mission and logistics planner; movie star Lonny Flash (Josh Radner ) master of mimicry and surprise; black power activist Roxy Jones (Tiffany Boone) counterfeiter, forger and crime scene cleaner; forever soldier Joe Mizushima (Louis Ozoawa) human weapon home from ‘Nam after three long tours; Holocaust survivors Murray and Mindy Markowitz (Saul Rubinek and Carol Kane), genius gadet-making weapons experts; and millionaire bankroller Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) titan of design, master plotter and chief vigilante. Jonah had a natural gift at code breaking, which made him valuable to the team, so though his savta tried to keep him away, Meyer recognized Jonah’s natural place with the hunters.

Throughout the series, viewers learn about the hunters through flashbacks of their pasts related to the reasons they joined the team as they hunt down the most visible Nazi’s like rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, while building alliances with local police detective Millie Malone (Jerrika Hinton) to stay out of trouble and further their cause. The Hunters eventually discover that the Nazi’s in the U.S. are trying to secretly build a Fourth Reich led by The Colonel (Leno Olin) and work to stop the Nazis’ efforts in a coordinated attack on the U.S.

The biggest blowback about the series currently is that people in the Jewish community are upset due to some of the fictional events portrayed in the series, such as the human chess game (which there is no actual proof ever happened). Chess is a common theme throughout the series, and coincidentally the only person I met that had family in the camps shared a story about chess and how they used to save bits of their bread and use spit to mold chess pieces to have something to occupy their minds in the camp. Instead of saying these are falsities, they can share that the truth held even more horrific atrocities.

I personally feel this is bringing new light to the devastation of the Holocaust and causing people to question the government’s decisions and outcomes surrounding Operation Paperclip. Basically, at the end of the war with Germany, the U.S. was confronted with a challenging situation – either bring the best and brightest of the Nazi regime to the U.S. in an unprecedented witness protection program to have them work in the highest levels of security, research and science in the U.S. or let the Russians get them, which seemed a non-option during the time due to the U.S. Cold War with Russia.

I saw a recent interview on NBC Today with a Holocaust survivor that is spending his life going to schools to share his experience due to the understanding and fear that this horrible event in history is being forgotten and swept under the rug. Just as random DNA tests on ancestral sites are identifying criminals from the past, this series sheds light on heinous criminals provided a cushy life in the U.S. by our own government and hope it helps to reveal who they are and for them to experience the consequences of their actions.

Hunters is filled with great acting, strong character development, intriguing plot twists, and a completely unexpected turn in the final episode that will shock viewers and leave them longing for what’s next in Season 2.

Intended for Mature Audiences 18+ – Contains Adult Content, Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Strong Sexual Content and Nudity
10 Episodes: E1- 90 minutes E2-E10 – 60 minutes

Movie Review by Cindy Summers
The Invisible Man

Finally finding the courage to leave her violent controlling husband, Cecilia Kass (Elizabeth Moss) drugged him, grabbed her go bag, met her sister Emily on a nearby road, and sped off into the night to seek shelter with her sister’s ex husband and childhood friend James, who was also a police officer. Shortly thereafter, Cecilia’s ex husband, wealthy scientist Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), commits suicide leaving her a substantial fortune, though Cecilia doesn’t want it being suspicious that his death was a hoax. Cecilia becomes convinced through various events that her ex husband is alive and through his own research has found a way to be invisible, now using that to torment her and threaten the lives of those around her. Released by Universal Pictures, Directed and Written by Leigh Whannell and Starring Elizabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass.

Cecilia had numerous experiences proving that her ex husband was indeed alive and somehow invisible, but the problem was no one else witnessed these incidents and given the circumstances began to question Cecilia’s sanity. Following an incident where James’ daughter Sydney was injured by an invisible force framing Cecilia, she returns to her home to look for answers and finds an invisibility suit, which she hides, just prior to a violent fight with an invisible attacker.

After appearing to kill her sister in front of witnesses at a restaurant (a knife floated up from the table and slit Emily’s throat), Cecilia is confined to a mental health facility, where she learns she’s pregnant. Adrian’s brother Tom, the lawyer in charge of his estate, somehow found out about the pregnancy and visits the mental facility in an attempted to force Cecilia to take a deal based on the original agreement being hinged on her not having a felony or deemed mentally unstable.

Cecilia refuses and finds an opportunity to take Tom’s pen and stab Adrian repeatedly, who was at the meeting invisibly, which caused the suit to malfunction and flicker to easily be seen alerting the facility security. The suit was functional enough for Adrian to go on an invisible rampage killing most of the staff and implicating Cecilia as the primarily suspect, making a deal with Cecilia that because of the pregnancy he would not hurt her or the baby, but instead planned to target James’ daughter Sydney.

The invisible villain went to James’ house followed by Cecilia and attacked both Sydney and James. Cecilia used a fire extinguisher to reveal the invisibility suit and mortally shot him, only to find it was Adrian’s brother Tom wearing the suit. Police found Cecilia’s ex tied up in the basement at the house, supposedly a victim himself, though Cecilia was convinced that it was exactly like when he faked his suicide.

Knowing the only way to be free would be to lock him up or end him, Cecilia meets Adrian for dinner at their old home and tries to get him to confess to his actions while on camera. Unable to convince him to tell the truth, Cecilia uses the previously hidden invisibility suit and causes Adrian to take his own life, appearing to be an actual suicide on the home security system.

Elizabeth Moss is excellent at appearing both the vulnerable victim while also a fearless hero unstoppable against all odds in this constantly surprising story with many tense plot twists. The suspense will have viewers on the edge of their seats, experiencing over and over again the helpless feeling of watching terrible things unfold with no ability to battle an invisible villain.

R (for some strong bloody violence, and language)
110 minutes

by Shirley Lorraine

Elite elicits strong emotions

Disease and drama meet humor and humanity on the Elite Theater stage in their current offering of Wit by Margaret Edson. A powerful, evocative study of the meaning of life and getting a grip on mortality, Wit provides a raw look at a progression of aggressive stage IV cancer through the eyes and body of Dr. Vivian Bearing, an academic who has had a lifelong fascination with and passion for language. The one-act Pulitzer Prize winning work is based on the author’s own experience as a teacher and hospital worker.

As a university professor teaching poetry, Dr. Bearing explores the works of 16th century poet John Donne to illustrate the metaphysical struggle between what is and what might be. Donne is considered by many to be the pre-eminent representative of metaphysical poetry, perhaps even greater than William Shakespeare.

Through this exploration, Bearing seeks to keep her own mind stimulated and alive as she descends into the depths of her illness. After agreeing to participate in a research study of her ovarian cancer, she re-examines her own view of relationships, compassion and the need to reach out to others.

Directed by Christine Adams, the Elite production utilizes effective minimalistic staging to bring the audience into Dr. Bearing’s hospital environment.

Sindy McKay-Swerdlove is outstanding in her poignant performance as Dr. Bearing. At one point in her treatment, the character aptly states, she is “merely a dust jacket, a human specimen.” McKay-Swerdlove gives a solid, compelling performance in a very demanding role.

Research Fellow Dr. Jason Posner (Michael Adams), a former student of Dr. Bearing, displays focused detachment as he concentrates on the disease rather than the person with the disease. Amy Hagler as nurse Susie Monahan provides the compassionate contrast who listens to the patient and attempts to ease her anxiety as the disease progresses.
Scott Blanchard is Dr. Kelekian, Dr. Bearing’s oncologist who delivers the bad news. He, too, becomes detached as the cancer progresses. The moment at grand rounds where the doctors all talk around the patient is a harsh reminder of de-sensitization that can occur.
The cast is filled out by Theresa Secor, Benjamin Blonigan, Elixeo Flores and Rebecca Spagnolia who provide additional informative sequences.

Wit is not an easy, uplifiting play to watch but it is inspiring. The subject matter will hit close to home for many. I know it did me. I left the theater reflecting on several loved ones I have lost to cancer, pondering how I could have been more responsive at the time. The play points out the absolute need for human touch and making continual connection as human beings, especially through times of hardship. It makes one think. And that’s good theater.
With a recent change in direction and help from many benefactors, the Elite Theater is experiencing a rebirth. The upcoming season promises ambitious works as well as new challenges and opportunities including Open Mic Nights, special events and a Conservatory Program for teaching the theater arts to folks 15 and older.

Wit continues at the Elite Theater 2731 S. Victoria Ave, Oxnard through March 22. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 general, $17 for students, seniors and military. www.theElite.org, 805-483-5118.