Review: ‘Con Mum,’ starring Graham Hornigold and Heather Kaniuk

March 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

Graham Hornigold in “Con Mum” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Con Mum”

Directed by Nick Green

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Con Mum” features a racially diverse group of people (black, white, Asian and Hispanic) discussing convicted fraudster Dionne Marie Hanna.

Culture Clash: Hanna, a native of Malaysia, was estranged from her British son Graham Hornigold for most of his life until she contacted him in 2020, and she proceeded to swindle him and some other people out of thousands of euros.

Culture Audience: “Con Mum” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching true crime documentaries about toxic family problems.

Heather Kaniuk in “Con Mum” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Con Mum” is a very personal and heartbreaking story of a son who became a victim of his fraudster mother. This documentary also exposes flaws in a legal system that gives leniency to some con artists based on some fraudsters’ physical characteristics. Because the fraudster was an elderly disabled woman, law enforcement was reluctant to take action against her.

Directed by Nick Green, “Con Mum” is a straightforward story told entirely from the viewpoints of some of the victims of convicted fraudster Dionne Marie Hanna. Hanna declined to be interviewed for the documentary, which has a lot of video footage, photos and phone messages from when Hanna spent time with these victims. The main narrator is Graham Hornigold, a British chef who is Hanna’s son. The movie is told in chronological order but starts off with Hornigold telling some of his life story first as background information.

Hornigold was born on a British military base in Germany, on November 26, 1974. From the ages of 2 to 4 years old, he was put in foster care for reasons that he says he still doesn’t know about. And then, his father and stepmother took him to St. Albans, England, where he was raised for the rest of his childhood. Hornigold still lives in England.

Hornigold says he never knew his mother—not even her name. His mother was a taboo subject in the family. It wasn’t until Hornigold was an adult that he found his birth certificate with his mother’s name on it.

Hornigold says his childhood was unhappy because his father (whose name is not revealed in the documentary) had alcoholism and physically abused him. Hornigold shows a scar on his head from when he said his father stomped on him when Hornigold was 7 years old. The reason why he was viciously assaulted was Hornigold dropped a cup of tea.

Hornigold’s father is reportedly deceased, according to what Hornigold has been telling the media in interviews about this documentary. Hornigold says he hadn’t seen or talked to his father in years. He explains in the documentary that the last time he saw his father, “I was 18 years old and knocking him down,” as in, they got into a physical fight.

Despite having a traumatic childhood, Hornigold went on to having a good life as an adult. He became a successful pastry chef in London. He achieved a little bit of fame in 2015, when he was a judge on the British TV series “Junior Bake Off.” By 2019, he was in a live-in relationship and had a patisserie consulting/management business with another chef named Heather Kaniuk, who would become the mother of their son.

Kaniuk is interviewed in the documentary. She describes their romance as being two opposites attracting: She likes healthy food, while he likes not-so-healthy food. What they had in common was a passion for cooking and a desire to go into business together. They were doing a lot of chef influencer work online when Kaniuk found out she was pregnant, right before the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in worldwide lockdowns and quarantines, beginning in March 2020.

While this COVID-19 period of time brought tremendous stress and sadness for people, the lockdowns had the opposite effect for Hornigold and Kaniuk, who both say that it brought them closer together and was one of the happiest periods of their lives because of her pregnancy. The couple used their lockdown/quarantine time to improve their cooking skills and build a larger following on social media. Hornigold didn’t know it at the time, but his family life was about to change in another big way.

Shortly after the COVID-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, a woman claiming to be Hornigold’s long-lost mother contacted him by email. She identified herself as a Malaysian native named Dionne Hanna, formerly known as Theresa. She said that he had been taken away from her as a child and she looked for her him years. Hanna also said she was currently staying at a hotel in Liverpool and asked to meet Hornigold in person.

He was skeptical at first and asked Kaniuk what she thought about this situation. Kaniuk didn’t know what to think. She says she did an Internet search on Dionne Hanna and didn’t find anything at the time. In hindsight, Kaniuk says, “I wish we’d never received that email because it was the start of something which you never thought in a million years would happen.

Hornigold became convinced that Hanna was his mother when he asked her several questions where she gave the correct answers. For example: She knew that her name listed on his birth certificate was Haton Hornigold, with her maiden surname listed as Mahamud. She also knew that Hornigold was born in Germany, which was a fact that very few people knew.

Hanna also dropped another bombshell: She had a brain tumor and bone marrow cancer and had only about six months to live. Under the circumstances, how could Hornigold say no to meeting her? He and Kaniuk went to Liverpool to meet his long-lost mother. This reunion was videorecorded, with clips shown in the documentary. She is described by many of her victims as presenting a fun-loving and charming personality.

It was a bittersweet reunion that Hornigold says made him feel happy to have found his mother but also sad to know he didn’t have much time to get to know her before she was expected to die. Hornigold describes meeting her for the first time as feeling like a void in his life had been filled. He says that he and Hanna immediately bonded because they both have similar extroverted personalities.

Hornigold then got another big surprise: His mother said she was very wealthy because she was an illegitimate child of the Sultan of Brunei. Hanna said she was also wealthy because she was a successful business person in agriculture. She claimed to own several farms and plantations, mostly in Asia.

Hornigold and Kaniuk believed her because Hanna only stayed at five-star hotels. Hotel employees knew Hanna and treated her like a VIP because they said she was one of their best customers. When Hanna visited the couple for a few weeks in London, Hanna bought them high-priced gifts, including a Range Rover for Hornigold and a BMW for Kaniuk. Hanna conducted herself like an important business mogul wherever they went in public.

In the weeks that followed, some problems began to surface. Hanna had a much darker side to the personality that she presented to a lot of people. According to Kaniuk, Hanna became very rude to Kaniuk with insulting criticism, but Hanna was careful not to show this hostility in front of Hornigold. Kaniuk got the distinct impression Hanna wanted to “drive a wedge” between the couple.

Two months after the couple’s son was born, Hanna insisted that Hornigold take a trip with her to Zurich, Switzerland, to sign some paperwork for his inheritance. It was supposed to be a four-day trip, but the trip lasted for two months. Kaniuk says at first, she was relieved to have some time to herself, but as the trip to Zurich got longer, she started to feel resentment that Hornigold was choosing to spend time with his mother instead of with Kaniuk and their newborn child.

The trip to Zurich would be the unraveling of more things that are detailed in the documentary. Four other people interviewed in the documentary were victims of Hanna in the early 2020s, and they met Hanna during this trip to Zurich. These victims are identified in the documentary only by their first names—Juan, Junyan, Markus and Peng—but their faces and voices are not disguised. They tell similar stories of what Hanna did to them in her con-artist schemes.

Juan, who seems to be Hornigold’s closest friend, was with Hornigold during that trip to Zurich. He says that Hanna began calling Juan her “grandson” and offered to buy him and Hornigold high-priced homes in Switzerland. They even looked at places that were for sale. Juan declined her offer to buy him a €7 million home because he says he wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of maintaining a home with that price tag.

Junyan and Markus are a couple who met Hanna at the Zurich hotel where she was staying. Markus (who describes himself as a filmmaker) and Junyan were in the process of launching an online retail business for luxury goods. But this start-up company needed investors. Hanna signed a contract with them that promised a 20% investment in this start-up company.

Peng, who is originally from China and is currently a resident of Germany, says that he met Hanna because he works as a middle man for a company that treats cancer patients. She seemed to want to financially invest in this company too. But, of course, almost everything she told Peng turned out to be a lie, including saying that she had terminal cancer.

What all of her victims have in common is that Hanna would show off her supposed wealth to them and often treat them to fancy dinners and high-priced gifts. And then, after she gained their trust, she asked to borrow money from them. She would also make them promise not to tell anyone about these loans. In Peng’s case, she lied by saying that Hornigold stole a lot of money from her, so Peng felt sorry for her when she asked Peng for money.

Even though she presented herself as wealthy, Hanna used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for why she said she couldn’t immediately get access to her money in bank accounts that were in other countries. Her victims believed her because they saw so much “evidence” that Hanna was wealthy. It never occurred to her victims (until it was too late) that the money she was using for lavish spending sprees came from victims of her elaborate con schemes.

Hornigold says that Hanna was constantly doing business deals on the phone. The people she talked to seemed to treat her like a mother or grandmother and even called her those names. In hindsight, they were more of her victims. Hanna also had bankers fooled when she would visit banks with Hornigold.

As for the money she cheated out of people by pretending it was a loan she would pay back, Hannah would keep coming up with excuses not to pay the loan. Her biggest excuse was that it was a bank’s fault for not letting her have access to her money. A friend of Hornigold’s identified only as Martin backs up his story. However, because these loans were not put into writing and there was no proof that the cash given to Hanna was a loan, a con artist such as Hanna could easily claim that these loans were gifts.

Juan didn’t fall for Hannah’s con game simply because he told her up front that he didn’t have any money to give to her. Juan says he became suspicious of Hanna as soon as she asked him for money, but he says he didn’t tell Hornigold about his suspicions at the time because he thought that Hornigold wouldn’t believe Juan and it would be the end of their friendship. Juan didn’t know at the time that Hanna was draining Hornigold of money by asking him to pay for many of her expenses while they were in Zurich.

Junyan and Markus estimate that they lost €100,000 to Hanna, just from money that they gave to her as loans—not including the money she had promised them in the investment contract. Peng says that Hanna cheated him out of €150,000. Hornigold says Hanna scammed him for £300,000.

Of course, Hanna reneged on the investment contract she signed with Junyan and Markus, who both decided to take the loss and not pursue legal action against her because they knew that Hanna probably didn’t have the money, even if they won in a lawsuit against her. Peng still has a hard time accepting how badly he was conned and still calls Hanna his “grandma.” Hornigold said he started to become suspicious of his mother when he found out that the Range Rover that Hanna “gifted” to him was not fully paid for, and he was stuck with the majority of the payments.

Kaniuk got suspicious a lot sooner than that. She says that she did a deep-dive investigation into Hannah’s background and found out that Hanna had been married three times: first, in 1970, then in 1984, and then in 1994. The name of Hanna’s father and her date of birth were different on each marriage certificate. Hanna also had a criminal record that included convictions for fraud and theft. That’s when Kaniuk says she knew that Hanna was hiding information and lying about many things.

Viewers watching “Con Mum” and don’t know the whole story will wonder if Hanna was also lying about being Hornigold’s mother. That information is revealed in the last third of the documentary, when Hornigold says that a DNA test was taken to prove if she was his biological mother or not. He says in the documentary what the DNA test found. This review won’t disclose the DNA test results, but it’s enough to say that the test results caused another change in how Hanna and Hornigold interacted.

“Con Mum” is a well-edited and riveting story about cruel lies and betrayal. The fraud put a tremendous strain on the relationship between Hornigold and Kaniuk. The documentary reveals if these two parents are still together and if Hanna faced any criminal charges for what she did to the victims who are interviewed in this documentary. Although it’s rare that long-lost mothers turn out to be professional con artists, “Con Mum” shows in harrowing ways that betrayals from loved ones are what hurt the most.

Netflix premiered “Con Mum” on March 25, 2025.

Review: ‘American Murder: Gabby Petito,’ starring Nichole Schmidt, Joe Petito, Jim Schmidt, Tara Petito, Rose Davis, Loretta Bush and Matt Carr

February 17, 2025

by Carla Hay

A 2021 photo of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie in “American Murder: Gabby Petito” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“American Murder: Gabby Petito”

Directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro

Culture Representation: The three-episode documentary series “American Murder: Gabby Petito” features an all-white group of people talking about the case of 22-year-old Gabby Petito, who was murdered in 2021, while she was on a U.S. road trip with her 23-year-old fiancé Brian Laundrie, who committed suicide and left a note admitting that he killed her.

Culture Clash: Before she was murdered, Petito had been a victim of domestic violence from Laundrie, which were problems that she hid when she documented her life on social media.

Culture Audience: “American Murder: Gabby Petito” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about well-known tragic cases of domestic violence that ends in death.

Pictured from left to right: Joe Petito, Tara Petito, Jim Schmidt and Nichole Schmidt in “American Murder: Gabby Petito” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“American Murder: Gabby Petito” is a comprehensive and well-researched documentary about a notorious murder/suicide case that has already gotten enormous amounts of media exposure. The participation of Gabby Petito’s parents and lessons about domestic violence give the film more resonance. Although almost all of the archival footage in “American Murder: Gabby Petito” has already been widely shown elsewhere, the documentary’s exclusive interviews are worth watching.

Directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro, “American Murder: Gabby Petito” also has previously unreleased footage and text messages from the two people at the center of this case: 22-year-old Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito and her 23-year-old fiancé Brian Laundrie. The documentary series also has interviews with a few people who knew Petito well and are speaking out for a documentary interview for the first time. Because the facts of this case have been widely reported, and it’s considered a solved case, the documentary does not present the story as a mystery but as a cautionary tale about warning signs in domestic violence that could lead to death.

Petito and Laundrie were on a road trip from their home city of North Point, Florida, to various states across the U.S., mostly to visit national parks. The trip (which began on July 2, 2021) was planned as a four-month journey that was documented on social media, mostly on Instagram. Petito was also filming parts of the trip as footage for a YouTube channel that she was launching called Nomadic Statik. She used drones for the scenic landscape footage that she wanted to include in her photos and videos.

Episode 1 of the documentary series is titled “We Bought a Van,” which chronicles the early years of Petito and Laundrie’s relationship and the beginning of their road trip. Episode 2 of the documentary series is titled “Where Is Gabby?,” which is about her disappearance and the massive media coverage that her missing-person case received and how it turned into a murder case. Episode 3 of the documentary series is titled “Burn After Reading,” which details the homicide investigation and the hunt for prime suspect Laundrie.

Petito was born on March 19, 1999, in Blue Point, New York. Her parents Joe and Nichole got divorced when she was less an a year old. Joe and Nichole would soon get married to other people. Joe Petito married his second wife Tara. Nichole married her second husband Jim Schmidt.

Joe and Nichole’s divorce was fairly amicable. Joe says in the documentary about himself and ex-wife Nichole: “We both agreed to put Gabby’s needs ahead of our own.” All four spouses raised Gabby as their own child in their blended family.

Gabby is described by several people in the documentary as an optimistic people-pleaser who liked to make people happy. She had artistic talent in drawing and photography. Starting from when she was a teenager, she liked to document her life on social media. Gabby eventually decided she wanted to be a social media influencer with a focus on having an adventurous lifestyle.

Brian Laundrie was born on November 18, 1997, in North Port, Florida. He was the youngest child of Christopher and Roberta Laundrie, who also have a daughter named Christie Laundrie. People who knew Brian describe him as a quiet loner who had a dark side. Just like Gabby, Brian liked to draw. His illustrations often had disturbing images evoking death. Brian also played guitar but didn’t have any aspirations to become a professional musician.

In fact, all the news reports and documentaries about this case do not describe Brian as having any particular career goals. That was in contrast to Gabby, whose dream job was to be a professional travel vlogger. (A vlogger is a video blogger.) She was working on making that dream a reality with this fateful 2021 road trip.

Gabby and Brian both grew up in middle-class families and graduated from Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York, although Brian graduated a couple of years before Gabby did. He graduated in 2015, while she graduated in 2017. He didn’t want to go to college, and at one point was living in his car. Gabby was unsure if she wanted to go to college and was taking a few years off to decide while she had low-paying jobs at places such as a coffee shop and Taco Bell.

Brian and Gabby knew each other as casual friends and began dating in May 2019, when Gabby was 20 years old. By December 2019, Brian convinced Gabby to move with him to his Florida birth city of North Port, where his parents had moved back to after their time in New York state. Gabby lived with Brian and his parents at the Laundrie home in North Port. According to her mother Nichole, Gabby had no hesitation about moving to another state because Gabby was very much in love with Brian.

In July 2020, Gabby and Brian secretly got engaged (there was no engagement ring), which was an early indication of the secrets that they kept from their loved ones. Gabby’s parents found out about the engagement from other people. Gabby admitted it was true when she was confronted about it. She also told people that she and Brian didn’t set a wedding date because they were in no rush to get married.

Gabby’s parents say that Brian was always respectful to them and they saw no warning signs about him. However, two women who knew Gabby well are interviewed in the documentary and talk about Brian’s troubling side. They both say that he was manipulative and very skilled at hiding unpleasant aspects of his personality.

A woman with black hair, whose face and voice are shown but who is not identified by name, talks about how she knew Brian and Gabby pretty well when they were all in high school, but she got to know Brian first. After high school, she and a roommate invited Brian to live with them when they found out he was living out of his car, before he and Gabby started dating each other. She describes Brian as someone who had a crush on her and became fixated on her, but it didn’t escalate into anything dangerous because he began dating Gabby shortly he and this unidentified woman’s friendship fizzled out.

The unidentified woman describes an incident that took place shortly after she and Brian had built a desk together. In the desk, she found a note written by Brian where he said, “You’re either my best friend or the love of my life. I can’t tell the difference.” The woman says she only thought of Brian as being like a brother to her, so this note made her feel uncomfortable. Once he figured out that she didn’t want to be more than friends with him, she says that her relationship with Brian was never the same. They drifted apart, and he then began dating Gabby.

Rose Davis was a close friend of Gabby’s in Florida. Davis also worked with Gabby at a local Taco Bell. Davis describes Brian as being very clingy and possessive of Gabby, who often blamed herself if she and Brian had an argument. Davis recounts an incident when she and Gabby were supposed to meet up to go line dancing at a nightclub, but Gabby was about 90 minutes late. Gabby texted Davis to apologize and tell her that she was late because Gabby and Brian were arguing and he had deliberately hidden the driver’s license she needed to drive and gain admission to the nightclub.

Davis also says that Brian would constantly insult Gabby for working at Taco Bell and because Gabby liked to hang out with her Taco Bell co-workers. According to Davis, Brian thought it was “stupid” for Gabby to want to be a professional vlogger. No one really comes right out and says it in the documentary, but Brian wasn’t any great prize himself, even though he gave a lot criticism to Gabby about what she was doing with her life. The reality was that Brian was living with his parents and seemed to be frequently unemployed.

There was also tension in the Laundrie home in Florida when Gabby lived there. At first, Gabby’s mother Nichole says that Brian’s mother Roberta treated Gabby like her own daughter. But eventually, Roberta seemed to be jealous of Gabby because of all the attention that Gabby was getting from Brian, according to Nichole. Gabby’s mother says that Gabby once described how at a Laundrie family dinner, Roberta had a meltdown because no one was talking about Roberta and her homemade pie, because Roberta wanted to be the center of attention.

Previously unreleased text messages between Brian and Gabby show that Roberta would get angry about something and Gabby would worry about smoothing over any tensions with Roberta. Brian would then say that his mother would frequently be like that. In one of the text messages, he told Gabby that whatever Roberta was angry about, Roberta would get over it. It seems like Brian had been dealing with Roberta’s mercurial personality for a very long time, probably his whole life.

The 2012 white Ford Transit van that Gabby converted into a small camper home was a vehicle that she owned, not Brian. This is the vehicle that they used for the road trip. Brian did most of the driving. But as the documentary unfolds, and there are more indications of Brian being a control freak, you can’t help but speculate how resentful he probably felt that he was on this road trip for what he believed were Gabby’s “stupid” career goals and in a vehicle that he didn’t even own.

You’d never know that Gabby and Brian were having any serious problems if you only looked at the photos and videos that Gabby posted on social media during this trip. These social media posts presented an idyllic and fun road trip taken by a couple very much in love and living peacefully with each other. This facade is one of many examples of how people lie about, distort, exaggerate or give misleading information about their lives on social media, so that they can feel important and because they want other people to envy them.

Most people watching this documentary already know that the illusion of Gabby and Brian having a romantic excursion was shattered when a 911 call was made in Moab, Utah, on August 12, 2021. The caller described witnessing a man hit and slap a woman on a street before the couple drove off in a white Ford Transit van. Brian and Gabby were that couple.

When five Moab police officers (four men and one woman) caught up to Gabby and Brian shortly after this incident, they talked to Gabby and Brian for about an hour and 15 minutes. The documentary’s first scene is a clip from the police body cam footage. Gabby is seen crying and admitting that there was a physical fight, but she says she hit Brian first. She says the argument started because she was in a bad mood because Brian got the interior of the van dirty.

Brian is seen grinning and laughing a little nervously while he’s questioned separately. Brian calls Gabby “crazy” and someone who is obsessive compulsive about neatness. In their separate interviews, Brian and Gabby both say that she has anxiety. Brian keeps describing Gabby as the aggressor in the fight.

Gabby also has a visible bruise over her left eye. This bruise isn’t noticeable in the body cam fotage, but it’s very clear in a separate photo from Gabby’s phone. This photo is included in the documentary. She also clearly describes Brian grabbing her face during their fight. When a police officer asks her about the bruise, Gabby downplays it and repeats she was the one who hit Brian first.

Brian, who had mild scratches on his arm, says that if he did get physical with Gabby, it was in self-defense or to calm her down. In the end, the cops give more weight to Brian’s version of events and decide that he and Gabby should spend the night apart. The police arrange for him to stay at a hotel and escort him there, with the hotel paid for by public domestic violence funds, while Gabby is expected to spend the night wherever she parks the van and has to fend for herself.

When the body cam footage was released to the media, domestic violence victim advocates and many other people were outraged by the police officers overlooking all the indications that Gabby, not Brian, was the real victim. For starters, she had a much more serious injury than Brian. Second, domestic violence victims often blame themselves and try to protect their abuser. Third, if police are called to the crime scene, the abuse victim often lies about the incident if the abuser is nearby because the victim doesn’t want worse retaliation from the abuser after the police leave.

One of the most unsettling things about the body cam footage is that one of the cops expresses uncertainty about how to handle this incident because he says if the police don’t take these incidents seriously enough, domestic abuse victims often end up dead. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to Gabby, who was murdered less than three weeks after this domestic violence incident. She was last seen in public on August 27, 2021, and it’s believed that Brian murdered her before the end of that month.

One of the most compelling interviews in “American Murder: Gabby Petito” is with the boyfriend that Gabby had before she began dating Brian. In the documentary, this ex-boyfriend is identified only by his first name: Jackson, who says that Gabby was his first love, but they broke up because their relationship happened at a time that “wasn’t the right time for us.”

Jackson remembers that when he and Gabby were a couple, they talked about taking the type of road trip that she was on with Brian. Jackson says that when he found out that Gabby and Brian were taking this road trip, he was very surprised at first but was ultimately very happy for her because he knew this road trip was a big dream of hers. Jackson and Gabby had drifted apart after their breakup and hadn’t been in touch with each other for a long time.

But that changed when, days before Gabby went missing, she contacted Jackson out of the blue. They talked on the phone and caught up with each other’s lives. Jackson says that Gabby admitted to him that she and Brian were having problems, but she didn’t give too many details. The last conversation that Gabby had with Jackson, she told Jackson she had a plan to leave Brian and she was going to break up with Brian in the near future.

On August 27, 2021, Jackson says he received a text from Gabby but he didn’t reply because he was busy. Jackson comments in the documentary that he believe this text was “a cry for help,” and he says he expresses remorse that he didn’t do more to help her. However, based on what many other people say in the documentary, Gabby hid a lot of her problems from her parents and other loved ones. It’s unknown how much Gabby would have told Jackson about her plan to leave Brian.

As many domestic violence experts can tell you, a victim of domestic abuse is most likely to be killed by the abuser when the abuser finds out that the victim is leaving the abuser for good. Although it will probably never be known for certain what caused Brian to kill Gabby, if what Jackson is saying is true, it’s very possible that Gabby could have been killed if she tried to end her relationship with Brian. She never disclosed explicit details of this plan to anyone, such as where she wanted live after she broke up with him.

The documentary chronicles other well-known facts of the case, such as:

  • Brian returned to his parents’ home without Gabby on September 1, 2021. He was driving her van and told his parents that he and Gabby had an argument, and he left her at a hotel. (In his suicide note, Brian confessed that was a lie.) Brian and his parents refused to cooperate with law enforcement and hired an attorney after a missing-person report was filed for Gabby on September 11, 2021.
  • Gabby’s missing-person case exploded on social media and was big news in mainstream media around the world. And then, Brian went missing. His parents reported him missing on September 17, 2021.
  • Gabby’s remains were found at Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area in Teton County, Wyoming, on September 19, 2021, but law enforcement authorities believe she was murdered sometime between August 27 and August 30, 2021. Her death was ruled a homicide by blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation.
  • On September 21, 2021, an arrest warrant was issued for Brian, who had been staying at his parents’ house before he disappeared. Hs parents helped authorities in the search in early October 2021. Most of the search was in Sarasota County, Florida, at Mabry Carlton Reserve and at the nearby Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park.
  • Brian was never apprehended. His skeletal remains were found at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on October 20, 2021. The official cause of death was suicide by a gunshot to the head.
  • Before Brian’s body was found, his parents discovered Brian’s journal and other belongings in a waterproof bag when they helped authorities search for him in Sarasota County in early October 2021. The contents of the journal were not made public until January 2022, when the FBI officially confirmed that he confessed in the journal that he had killed Gabby. In his confession, Brian claimed that Gabby had injured herself in an accident, and he wanted to put her out of her misery.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what Brian’s parents knew about Gabby’s death before her body was found and if Brian’s parents helped him cover up her murder. At the time this documentary was made, Brian’s parents have declined all requests for interviews. However, the documentary includes a mention of the widely reported hand-written note that Brian’s mother Roberta wrote after Gabby disappeared. The note, which was found in Brian’s backpack near his corpse, said in part: “If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and body bags.” She also said in the note: “Burn after reading.”

The documentary’s epilogue mentions that Gabby’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brian’s parents in 2022, and the case was settled in 2024. The documentary does not mention that Gabby’s parents filed a separate wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab Police Department in 2022, but that case was dismissed in 2024. As of this writing, Gabby’s parents are appealing this lawsuit dismissal and do not discuss their lawsuits in their documentary interviews.

Other people interviewed in “American Murder: Gabby Petito” include FBI special agent (Tampa division) Loretta Bush; Teton County sheriff Matt Carr; North Port Police Department public information officer Josh Taylor, an FBI special agent (Denver division) identified only as Kyle; Norma Jean Jalovec, a Wyoming resident who gave Brian a ride to a campsite, not knowing that he was going to be known as a murder suspect; married couple Jenn Bethune and Kyle Bethune, the van life vloggers who had video footage of Gabby’s van during the time she was reported missing; and T.J. Schmidt, Gabby’s younger brother.

“American Murder: Gabby Petito” gives a brief mention of how Gabby’s murder case was disproportionately covered by the media, compared to the numerous missing people of color whose cases never get reported by the media. Gabby’s father Joe said that he used to be offended by the notion that Gabby’s case got special treatment because she was white until he saw the proven facts about the media giving preference to white females for missing person coverage, and he accepted that it was true. Joe says he and Gabby’s other parents have made it their mission with the Gabby Petito Foundation to get fair and accurate media coverage for missing people of any race.

Gabby’s parents and stepparents also did interviews for the 2021 Peacock documentary “The Murder of Gabby Petito: Truth, Lies and Social Media,” which did not have interviews with any law enforcement officials involved in the case and focused more on the media coverage by interviewing several journalists and social media influencers. By contrast, “American Murder: Gabby Petito” doesn’t have any interviews with journalists. “American Murder: Gabby Petito” also has the benefit of more information that has become available since this tragedy took place in 2021.

“American Murder: Gabby Petito” has excerpts from Gabby’s personal journals, letters, text messages and social media posts that are read by an artificial-intelligence-generated voice made to sound like Gabby. This A.I. content, which is disclosed in the documentary, was approved by Gabby’s parents, and it’s only a very small part of this documentary, which tells Gabby’s story in a respectful manner. If anything can be learned from this documentary, it’s how people can better help each other out of abusive situations, and living your best life authentically is much more important than what’s shown on social media.

Netflix premiered “American Murder: Gabby Petito” on February 17, 2025.

Review: ‘American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson,’ starring Christopher Darden, Kim Goldman, Carl Douglas, Mark Fuhrman, Mike Gilbert, Yolanda Crawford and Brian ‘Kato’ Kaelin

February 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

O.J. Simpson during his 1995 trial in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson”

Directed by Floyd Russ

Culture Representation: The four-episode documentary series “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” features a group of white and African American people talking about the murder investigation and 1995 murder trial of former football star O.J. Simpson.

Culture Clash: Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, with the notorious and controversial trial having a verdict that was racially divisive.

Culture Audience: “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about celebrities, murder trials and how race, police investigations and attorneys can influence the outcome of a trial.

Christopher Darden in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” takes a look into the most famous murder trial of the 20th century. Does the world really need another documentary about O.J. Simpson and his scandals? Not really, but this four-episode docuseries uncovers a few interesting tidbits about the murder investigation and features a rare interview with former prosecutor Christopher Darden. In 2024, Simpson died of prostate cancer when he was 76.

Directed by Floyd Russ, “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” is not as comprehensive as the 2016 Oscar-winning/Emmy-winning documentary “O.J.: Made in America,” directed by Ezra Edelman. “O.J.: Made in America” (which was really a five-episode series pretending to be a movie) took a deeper dive into the racial, socioeconomic and cultural histories of the Los Angeles area to explain the circumstances that influenced the verdict. Because of all the media coverage, the O.J. Simpson murder trial was called the Trial of the Century.

“O.J.: Made in a America” was also a biography of Simpson, whereas “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” focuses mostly on his legal problems after he became famous. He was born and raised in San Francisco as Orenthal James Simpson on July 9, 1947. Simpson became a Heisman Trophy-winning football star at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

He then went on to become a celebrity running back in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, mostly for the Buffalo Bills, and culminating with two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers before his retirement from football in 1979. Before and after he retired from football in 1979, Simpson also had a career as an actor. After retirement as a NFL player, Simpson was also a NFL analyst for NBC and ABC,

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” sticks to a certain theme in each episode: Episode 1, titled “The Blood,” is about the murder investigation. Episode 2, titled “The Search,” is about Simpson’s apparent attempt to become a fugitive. Episode 3, titled “The Circus,” is about the murder trial. Episode 4, titled “The Verdict,” is about the trial’s verdict and the aftermath. Each episode is edited for maximum suspense, even though most people watching this documentary already know what the trial’s outcome was.

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” doesn’t look back on historical events before 1994, the year that Simpson’s 35-year-old ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her 25-year-old friend Ron Goldman were murdered in front of her condominium home in Los Angeles’ Brentwood neighborhood. O.J. lived in a separate house in Brentwood. “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” also isn’t a comprehensive biography about O.J. Simpson. As the title suggests, “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” is really about the legal cases and controversies surrounding O.J. from 1994 onward.

By now, most people who know anything about O.J. know the basic facts of the case. On June 12, 1994, Nicole and Goldman were found murdered outside her condominium that night. They were both brutally stabbed to death. Sensitive viewers be warned: “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” shows the unedited bloody crime scene photos of the slaughtered bodies of Nicole (who was nearly beheaded) and Goldman. “O.J.: Made in America” also showed these photos.

O.J., who did not have a solid alibi during the estimated time of the murders, was arrested for the murders after taking police on a low-speed, 60-mile, two-hour chase on various freeways in Orange County and Los Angeles County, on June 17, 1994. This chase (which had O.J. in a 1993 white Ford Bronco driven by his best friend Al “A.C.” Cowlings) was famously televised live and showed many spectators cheering for O.J. on the sides of the freeways. In the Bronco, O.J. reportedly had a gun and was threatening to kill himself. O.J. had also written a self-pitying, possibly suicidal note before he fled in the Bronco chase and later surrendered to police.

The murder weapon was never found. O.J.’s blood was found at the crime scene, Nicole’s blood was found in O.J.’s car, and he could never explain how it got there. O.J. had a cut on his hand that night, but he said it was from shaving. A bloody glove was found at the crime scene. The presentation of the glove during the murder trial would be a major turning point in the trial.

O.J.’s well-documented history of physically abusing Nicole (including his 1989 arrest, for which he was fined and received probation) was used as evidence to establish a pattern that he wanted to harm her. Nicole’s older sister Denise Brown famously testified in the murder trial about O.J.’s pattern of abuse against Nicole. Also presented as evidence in the trial: photos of a bruised Nicole and Nicole’s past 911 calls for help to report O.J.’s physical abuse against her.

O.J. and Nicole started dating in 1977, shortly after he met her at a private club, where she worked as a waitress. At the time, she was 18 and he was 30. O.J. divorced his first wife Marguerite Simpson in 1979, after 12 years of marriage. Marguerite had custody of their two children: Arnelle Simpson (born in 1968) and Jason Simpson (born in 1970), who both stayed in contact with their father after the divorce. O.J. and Margeurite had a third child—a daughter name Aaren—who tragically died from a drowning accident at 2 years old in 1979.

O.J. and Nicole got married in 1985, the year that their daughter Sydney was born. Their son Justin was born in 1988. After a volatile relationship with several breakups and makeups, O.J. and Nicole got divorced in 1992. The former couple reunited briefly (but did not remarry) after the divorce, but that reunion didn’t last. By 1994, Nicole had been dating other men and wanted to move on from her ex-husband O.J., who was described by many people as jealous and controlling of Nicole.

The prosecution contended that O.J. “snapped” and committed the murders because Nicole had shunned him earlier that night when he saw Nicole and her family at the restaurant Mezzaluna, where Goldman worked as a waiter. Nicole’s mother had accidentally left her glasses at the restaurant, and Goldman was at Nicole’s condo to return the glasses. Goldman was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

O.J. hired a so-called Dream Team of famous defense lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran (the lead attorney), Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Carl Douglas, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. The prosecution was led by Marcia Clark, with assistance from Bill Hodgman and Darden. The televised trial, presided over by Judge Lance Ito, lasted from January 24 to October 3, 1995.

The sequestered jury (which consisted of a majority of black women) heard conflicting testimony about the evidence. The evidence was put into doubt because the defense team successfully argued that the investigation could have been corrupted by racist cops who tampered with or planted the evidence. In the end, Simpson was found not guilty on all counts. Several TV news outlets showed live reactions to the verdicts. Mostly white groups of people looked shocked and disappointed, while mostly black groups of people cheered and looked elated.

There have been many books, documentaries and news reports with analyses of why many black people viewed this trial differently from people of other races. “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” repeats the theory that the black people who cheered for the verdict weren’t cheering because they thought that O.J. was not guilty. They were cheering because they felt that the verdict was a rebuke against a system that often unjustly convicts or mistreats black people. They saw it as a triumph over the mostly white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which had a long history of racist brutality against black people. (The controversy and 1992 riots over Rodney King are a prime example of how much these issues resonated with people.)

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” doesn’t reveal much that “O.J.: Made in America” didn’t already cover. However, “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” does mention a few more thngs in a long list of evidence that the LAPD detectives on the scene overlooked or did not handle properly. Among the photographed things that were not taken into evidence at Simpson’s house when the police searched his house right after the murders: some clothes in Simpson’s washing machine, bandages in a bedroom, and blood on a light switch. There was also a photographed bloody fingerprint at the crime scene that was not taken into evidence.

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” makes a less convincing argument that two people who are interviewed in this documentary—Jill Shively and Skip Junis—should have been called to testify for the prosecution during the trial. The reality is that these two witnesses would not have made a difference in the outcome of the trial because there was too much reasonable doubt in their witness statements. Shively claims that she saw O.J. speeding on Bundy Drive (the street where Nicole’s condo was) on the night of the murder during the time that he said that he was at home. O.J. said he was waiting for a limo to take him to Los Angeles International Airport for a business trip to Chicago. Junis says he saw O.J. throw away something at the Los Angeles International Airport, but Junis can’t say for sure what that something is.

Shively says she vividly remembers her encounter with O.J. because O.J. was speeding when he nearly collided with a Nissan car and she heard him speak as he glared at her. Shively gave this testimony to the grand jury that indicted O.J. for the murders. If Shively’s testimony is true, the driver of the Nissan never came forward.

However, Shively could not reasonably be a witness for the prosecution for the murder trial because, by her own admission, her credibility was tainted after she was paid $5,000 to do an interview with the tabloid TV show “Hard Copy” about her alleged run-in with O.J. In “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson,” Shively says at the time she did this interview, she thought it was normal to get paid for this type of interview, and she didn’t know at the time the prosecution would disregard her as a witness.

Junis says that when he saw O.J. at Los Angeles International Airport after the murders took place, Juris says he saw O.J. take an object from a duffel bag and throw that object in an outside garbage can. Junis says the object looked like something long and was possibly in a sheath. He says that it could have been a knife. However, Junis admits in the documentary that it was dark outside, he was too far away to actually see what was thrown away, and he never bothered to look in the garbage can to see what the object was. In other words, he’s not a reliable witness. It’s no wonder he wasn’t called to testify in the trial.

Former prosecutor Darden, who is now a defense attorney, has a world-weary and generally resigned attitude about losing the most famous case of his career. He says of the verdict: “It’s a beautiful thing or a travesty of justice. It’s about one’s perspective.” His former prosecutor colleague Clark participated in “O.J.: Made in America” and apparently declined to participate in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson.” Clark took a leave of absence from the California District Attorney’s office and officially quit in 1997, the same year that her non-fiction book “Without a Doubt” (about her trial experiences) was published. She no longer practices law and is now an author who has written several crime novels.

Douglas is the most flamboyant person interviewed in the documentary and is one of two members from O.J.’s defense team who is interviewed in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson.” The other former Dream Team attorney who’s interviewed is Bill Thompson, who focuses mainly on talking about what he says was untrustworthy DNA evidence that was mishandled by police investigators. Thompson gives a lot of credit to fellow defense attorneys Scheck and Neufeld for their expertise in DNA.

Some members of the so-called Dream Team are now deceased, including Kardashian, Cochran and Bailey, who was disbarred in 2001 and 2003. In 2002, Kardashian died of esophageal cancer at age 59. Robert Kardashian’s ex-wife Kris and their daughters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe would later become reality TV stars. In 2005, Cochran died of a lung infection at age 67. An ailing Bailey died in 2021, at age 87, and his family will not disclose his cause of death.

Douglas repeats the well-known facts that the Dream Team had internal conflicts about strategy and leadership, including Shapiro’s ego getting bruised when O.J. decided to have Cochran replace Shapiro as the lead defense attorney. Shapiro and Cochran clashed over the direction of the defense team strategy. Shapiro (who is white) didn’t want race and racism to be major factors in the defense. By contrast, Cochran (who was black) wanted race and racism to be the central points in the defense.

Douglas also keeps pushing the notion that the LAPD could not be trusted in this case because there were too many incompetent and/or racists cops involved who could have mishandled or tampered with evidence. The credibility of the evidence was also put in doubt when video evidence showed members of the LAPD, including evidence technician Dennis Fung, not wearing gloves when handling evidence at the crime scene. Defense attorney Scheck famously ripped into Fung during Fung’s testimony about blood and DNA found at the crime scene.

Douglas also freely admits that he loved the controversial decision to allow the trial to be televised. “Trial lawyers have great egos,” Douglas comments. “I always say that the most dangerous spot to be is between a trial lawyer and a camera that’s running. We lawyers thrive on that attention and that celebrity. And we want it to continue forever.” Douglas doesn’t say whether or not he thinks O.J. was guilty of the murders but he does say that the verdict was correct because the LAPD made so many mistakes in the investigation, there was plenty of reasonable doubt.

Mark Fuhrman, one of the detectives who gathered evidence at the crime scene, was the defense team’s chief villain, especially after the team uncovered Fuhrman’s admitted history of racism against black people. In “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson,” Fuhrman is interviewed and seems less interested in defending all the known blunders that he made in the investigation and is more interested in trying to convince whoever watches this documentary that he wasn’t as terrible of a racist as O.J’s defense team made him out to be.

“I can’t undo what has been done,” Fuhrman says while adding that he’s not looking for forgiveness. Fuhrman also bitterly complains that his supervisor at the time, Philip Van Atter, was at the crime scene and didn’t properly look at Fuhrman’s notes. Van Atter died in 2012, at the age of 71.

Kim Goldman, Ron Goldman’s younger sister, is the only person from the victims’ families who is interviewed in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson.” She’s given many interviews about her family’s involvement in the murder case and has a podcast about it called Confronting: O.J. Simpson with Kim Goldman. Kim Goldman really doesn’t say anything new about Ron, O.J., the murder trial or the 1997 wrongful death civil trial that the Brown family and Goldman family won against O.J Simpson. The O.J. Simpson estate has yet to pay the $33.5 million judgment that was awarded in the trial.

Ron and Kim’s father Fred Goldman, another outspoken critic of O.J., participated in “O.J. Made in America” but chose not to be in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson.” The members of the Brown family presumably did not participate in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” because they did a separate documentary project: the 2024 Lifetime docuseries titled “The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.”

Douglas isn’t very convincing when saying that because he saw O.J. cry, that made Douglas doubt that O.J. could be a cold-blooded murderer. Douglas comments that you’d have to be a sociopath to commit that type of murder and then calmly go to an airport an hour later. However, former LAPD homicide detective Tom Lange, who was one of the chief people in the murder investigation, says in the documentary that O.J. was indeed a “sociopath.”

Mike Gilbert, O.J.’s former sports agent, repeats what he’s said in many other interviews: Gilbert was loyal to O.J. until after O.J. made a comment to him years after the murders that convinced Gilbert that O.J. murdered Nicole and Ron. O.J. told Gilbert that Nicole and Ron would be alive if Niocle didn’t have a knife when she opened the door. Coincidence or not, Gilbert says his friendship with O.J. ended shortly after O.J. filed for bankruptcy in 2007.

Other people interviewed in “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” include Brian “Kato” Kaelin, a wannabe actor who was living as a guest on Simpson’s property and was a prosecution witness to what he saw that night; prosecution witness Ron Shipp, a former cop friend of O.J.’s; Brad Roberts, a former LAPD detective who worked on the murder case; Bettina Rasmussen, a witness who saw Nicole’s dog wandering around the neighborhood with bloody paws on the night of the murder; Peter Weireter, the crisis negotiator who helped convince O.J. to surrender to police; Yolanda Crawford, who was a jury member for the murder trial; and journalists Geraldo Rivera, Jeffrey Toobin, Conan Nolan and Marika Gerrard.

Crawford says of the jury’s verdict in the murder trial: “I hated that we had to do that,” but she adds that the verdict came down to reasonable doubt that the prosecution could not erase. Crawford also comments that she will never forget the scream that Kim Goldman made after the verdict was read. As she has said in other interviews, Crawford believes she and the rest of the jury made the right decision in the verdict.

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” does a brief summary of what O.J.’s life was like after 1997, including his 2008 conviction of robbery and 2017 early release from prison. He served nine years of a 33-year sentence. “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” director Russ has said in interviews that O.J. was still alive when the documentary began filming and was asked to participate. But the documentary filmmakers decided not to include O.J. because O.J. wanted to be paid to participate and wanted to dictate who else could be in the documentary.

“American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” is a generally competent chronicle about a very divisive true crime story. A few things were left out of the documentary, such as Simpson’s controversial 2007 book “If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer,” which was labeled as a fiction book. Fred Goldman was awarded the rights to the book because of his civil case judgment against O.J. Simpson. Ultimately, “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” is a docuseries worth watching for a shorter and more updated version of what was essentially covered in “O.J.: Made in America.”

Netflix premiered “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” on January 29, 2025.

2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards: ‘Wicked,’ ‘Shōgun’ are the top nominees

January 8, 2025

EDITOR’S NOTE: With five nominations each, Universal Pictures’ musical “Wicked” and FX’s drama series “Shōgun” are the top nominees.

The following is a press release from the Screen Actors Guild:

The SAG Awards® announced the nominees for the 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® honoring outstanding stunt, individual, cast and ensemble performances for the past year. 

The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, produced by Silent House Productions in partnership with SAG-AFTRA, will stream live globally on Netflix Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall. 

The Motion Picture Nominees are:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
ADRIEN BRODY / László Tóth – “THE BRUTALIST”
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET / Bob Dylan – “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN”
DANIEL CRAIG / William Lee – “QUEER”
COLMAN DOMINGO / Divine G – “SING SING”
RALPH FIENNES / Lawrence – “CONCLAVE”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
PAMELA ANDERSON / Shelly – “THE LAST SHOWGIRL”
CYNTHIA ERIVO / Elphaba – “WICKED”
KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN / Emilia/Manitas – “EMILIA PÉREZ”
MIKEY MADISON / Ani – “ANORA”
DEMI MOORE / Elisabeth – “THE SUBSTANCE” 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
JONATHAN BAILEY / Fiyero – “WICKED”
YURA BORISOV / Igor – “ANORA”
KIERAN CULKIN / Benji Kaplan – “A REAL PAIN”
EDWARD NORTON / Pete Seeger – “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN”
JEREMY STRONG / Roy Cohn – “THE APPRENTICE”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
MONICA BARBARO / Joan Baez – “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN”
JAMIE LEE CURTIS / Annette – “THE LAST SHOWGIRL”
DANIELLE DEADWYLER / Berniece – “THE PIANO LESSON”
ARIANA GRANDE / Galinda/Glinda – “WICKED”
ZOE SALDAÑA / Rita – “EMILIA PÉREZ”

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
MONICA BARBARO / Joan Baez
NORBERT LEO BUTZ / Alan Lomax
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET / Bob Dylan
ELLE FANNING / Sylvie Russo
DAN FOGLER / Albert Grossman
WILL HARRISON / Bobby Neuwirth
ERIKO HATSUNE / Toshi Seeger
BOYD HOLBROOK / Johnny Cash
SCOOT MCNAIRY / Woody Guthrie
BIG BILL MORGANFIELD / Jesse Moffette
EDWARD NORTON / Pete Seeger

ANORA
YURA BORISOV / Igor
MARK EYDELSHTEYN / Ivan
KARREN KARAGULIAN / Toros
MIKEY MADISON / Ani
ALEKSEY SEREBRYAKOV / Nikolai Zakharov
VACHE TOVMASYAN / Garnick

CONCLAVE
SERGIO CASTELLITTO / Tedesco
RALPH FIENNES / Lawrence
JOHN LITHGOW / Tremblay
LUCIAN MSAMATI / Adeyemi
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI / Sister Agnes
STANLEY TUCCI / Bellini

EMILIA PÉREZ
KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN / Emilia/Manitas
SELENA GOMEZ / Jessi
ADRIANA PAZ / Epifania
ZOE SALDAÑA / Rita

WICKED
JONATHAN BAILEY / Fiyero
MARISSA BODE / Nessarose
PETER DINKLAGE / Dr. Dillamond
CYNTHIA ERIVO / Elphaba
JEFF GOLDBLUM / The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
ARIANA GRANDE / Galinda/Glinda
ETHAN SLATER / Boq
BOWEN YANG / Pfannee
MICHELLE YEOH / Madame Morrible

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
DUNE: PART TWO
THE FALL GUY
GLADIATOR II
WICKED

The Television Program Nominees are:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
JAVIER BARDEM / Jose Menendez – “MONSTERS: THE LYLE AND ERIK MENENDEZ STORY”
COLIN FARRELL / Oz Cobb – “THE PENGUIN”
RICHARD GADD / Donny – “BABY REINDEER”
KEVIN KLINE / Stephen Brigstocke – “DISCLAIMER”
ANDREW SCOTT / Tom Ripley – “RIPLEY”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
KATHY BATES / Edith Wilson – “THE GREAT LILLIAN HALL”
CATE BLANCHETT / Catherine Ravenscroft – “DISCLAIMER”
JODIE FOSTER / Det. Elizabeth Danvers – “TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY”
LILY GLADSTONE / Cam Bentland – “UNDER THE BRIDGE”
JESSICA GUNNING / Martha – “BABY REINDEER”
CRISTIN MILIOTI / Sofia Falcone – “THE PENGUIN”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
TADANOBU ASANO / Kashigi Yabushige – “SHŌGUN”
JEFF BRIDGES / Dan Chase – “THE OLD MAN”
GARY OLDMAN / Jackson Lamb – “SLOW HORSES”
EDDIE REDMAYNE / The Jackal – “THE DAY OF THE JACKAL”
HIROYUKI SANADA / Yoshii Toranaga – “SHŌGUN”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
KATHY BATES / Madeline Matlock – “MATLOCK”
NICOLA COUGHLAN / Penelope Featherington – “BRIDGERTON”
ALLISON JANNEY / Vice President Grace Penn – “THE DIPLOMAT”
KERI RUSSELL / Kate Wyler – “THE DIPLOMAT”
ANNA SAWAI / Toda Mariko – “SHŌGUN”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
ADAM BRODY / Noah Roklov – “NOBODY WANTS THIS”
TED DANSON / Charles Nieuwendyk – “A MAN ON THE INSIDE”
HARRISON FORD / Paul – “SHRINKING”
MARTIN SHORT / Oliver Putnam – “ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING”
JEREMY ALLEN WHITE / Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto – “THE BEAR”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
KRISTEN BELL / Joanne – “NOBODY WANTS THIS”
QUINTA BRUNSON / Janine Teagues – “ABBOTT ELEMENTARY”
LIZA COLÓN-ZAYAS / Tina – “THE BEAR”
AYO EDEBIRI / Sydney Adamu – “THE BEAR”
JEAN SMART / Deborah Vance – “HACKS”

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
BRIDGERTON
GERALDINE ALEXANDER / Mrs. Wilson
VICTOR ALLI / John Stirling
ADJOA ANDOH / Lady Danbury
JULIE ANDREWS / Lady Whistledown
LORRAINE ASHBOURNE / Mrs. Varley
SIMONE ASHLEY / Kate Bridgerton
JONATHAN BAILEY / Anthony Bridgerton
JOE BARNES / Lord Wilding
JOANNA BOBIN / Lady Cowper
JAMES BRYAN / Nicky Mondrich
HARRIET CAINS / Philipa Featherington
BESSIE CARTER / Prudence Featherington
GENEVIEVE CHENNEOUR / Miss Livingston
DOMINIC COLEMAN / Lord Cowper
NICOLA COUGHLAN / Penelope Featherington
KITTY DEVLIN / Miss Stowell
HANNAH DODD / Francesca Bridgerton
DANIEL FRANCIS / Lord Marcus Anderson
RUTH GEMMELL / Violet Bridgerton
ROSA HESMONDHALGH / Rae
SESLEY HOPE / Miss Kenworthy
FLORENCE HUNT / Hyacinth Bridgerton
MARTINS IMHANGBE / Will Mondrich
MOLLY JACKSON-SHAW / Miss Hartigan
CLAUDIA JESSIE / Eloise Bridgerton
LORN MACDONALD / Albion Finch
JESSICA MADSEN / Cressida Cowper
EMMA NAOMI / Alice Mondrich
HANNAH NEW / Lady Tilley Arnold
LUKE NEWTON / Colin Bridgerton
CALEB OBEDIAH / Lord Cho
JAMES PHOON / Harry Dankworth
VINEETA RISHI / Lady Malhotra
GOLDA ROSHEUVEL / Queen Charlotte
HUGH SACHS / Brimsley
BANITA SANDHU / Miss Malhotra
LUKE THOMPSON / Benedict Bridgerton
WILL TILSTON / Gregory Bridgerton
POLLY WALKER / Lady Featherington
ANNA WILSON-JONES / Lady Livingston
SOPHIE WOOLLEY / Lady Stowell

THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
KHALID ABDALLA / Ulle Dag Charles
JON ARIAS / Álvaro
NICK BLOOD / Vince Pyne
ÚRSULA CORBERÓ / Nuria
CHARLES DANCE / Timothy Winthrop
BEN HALL / Damian Richardson
CHUKWUDI IWUJI / Osita Halcrow
PATRICK KENNEDY / Teddy
PUCHI LAGARDE / Marisa
LASHANA LYNCH / Bianca Pullman
ELEANOR MATSUURA / Zina Jansone
JONJO O’NEILL / Edward Carver
EDDIE REDMAYNE / The Jackal
SULE RIMI / Paul Pullman
LIA WILLIAMS / Isabel Kirby

THE DIPLOMAT
ALI AHN / Eidra Park
SANDY AMON-SCHWARTZ / Sandy
TIM DELAP / Byron
PENNY DOWNIE / Frances Munning
ATO ESSANDOH / Stuart Hayford
DAVID GYASI / Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison
CELIA IMRIE / Margaret Roylin
RORY KINNEAR / Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge
PEARL MACKIE / Alysse
NANA MENSAH / Billie Appiah
GRAHAM MILLER / Neil Barrow
KERI RUSSELL / Kate Wyler
RUFUS SEWELL / Hal Wyler
ADAM SILVER / Howard
KENICHIRO THOMSON / Martin

SHŌGUN
SHINNOSUKE ABE / Buntaro
TADANOBU ASANO / Kashigi Yabushige
TOMMY BASTOW / Father Martin Alvito
TAKEHIRO HIRA / Ishido Kazunari
MOEKA HOSHI / Usami Fuji
HIROMOTO IDA / Lord Kiyama
COSMO JARVIS / John Blackthorne
HIROTO KANAI / Kashigi Omi
YUKI KURA / Yoshii Nagakado
TAKESHI KUROKAWA / Lord Ohno
FUMI NIKAIDO / Ochiba No Kata
TOKUMA NISHIOKA / Toda Hiromatsu
HIROYUKI SANADA / Yoshii Toranaga
ANNA SAWAI / Toda Mariko

SLOW HORSES
RUTH BRADLEY / Emma Flyte
TOM BROOKE / JK Coe
JAMES CALLIS / Claude Whelan
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / Roddy Ho
AIMEE-FFION EDWARDS / Shirley Dander
ROSALIND ELEAZAR / Louisa Guy
SEAN GILDER / Sam Chapman
KADIFF KIRWAN / Marcus Longridge
JACK LOWDEN / River Cartwright
GARY OLDMAN / Jackson Lamb
JONATHAN PRYCE / David Cartwright
SASKIA REEVES / Catherine Standish
JOANNA SCANLAN / Moira Tregorian
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS / Diana Taverner
HUGO WEAVING / Frank Harkness
NAOMI WIRTHNER / Molly Doran
TOM WOZNICZKA / Patrice

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY
QUINTA BRUNSON / Janine Teagues
WILLIAM STANFORD DAVIS / Mr. Johnson
JANELLE JAMES / Ava Coleman
CHRIS PERFETTI / Jacob Hill
SHERYL LEE RALPH / Barbara Howard
LISA ANN WALTER / Melissa Schemmenti
TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS / Gregory Eddie

THE BEAR
LIONEL BOYCE / Marcus
LIZA COLÓN-ZAYAS / Tina
AYO EDEBIRI / Sydney Adamu
ABBY ELLIOTT / Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto
EDWIN LEE GIBSON / Ebraheim
COREY HENDRIX / Sweeps
MATTY MATHESON / Neil Fak
EBON MOSS-BACHRACH / Richard “Richie” Jerimovich
RICKY STAFFIERI / Theodore Fak
JEREMY ALLEN WHITE / Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto

HACKS
ROSE ABDOO / Josefina
CARL CLEMONS-HOPKINS / Marcus Vaughan
PAUL W. DOWNS / Jimmy Lusaque, Jr.
HANNAH EINBINDER / Ava Daniels
MARK INDELICATO / Damien
JEAN SMART / Deborah Vance
MEGAN STALTER / Kayla Schaeffer

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
MICHAEL CYRIL CREIGHTON / Howard Morris
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS / Zach Galifianakis
SELENA GOMEZ / Mabel Mora
RICHARD KIND / Vince Fish
EUGENE LEVY / Eugene Levy
EVA LONGORIA / Eva Longoria
STEVE MARTIN / Charles-Haden Savage
KUMAIL NANJIANI / Rudy Thurber
MOLLY SHANNON / Bev Melon
MARTIN SHORT / Oliver Putnam

SHRINKING
HARRISON FORD / Paul
BRETT GOLDSTEIN / Louis
DEVIN KAWAOKA / Charlie
GAVIN LEWIS / Connor
WENDIE MALICK / Dr. Julie Baram
LUKITA MAXWELL / Alice
TED MCGINLEY / Derek
CHRISTA MILLER / Liz
JASON SEGEL / Jimmy
RACHEL STUBINGTON / Summer
LUKE TENNIE / Sean
MICHAEL URIE / Brian
JESSICA WILLIAMS / Gaby

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
THE BOYS
FALLOUT
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
THE PENGUIN
SHŌGUN

****

ABOUT THE SAG AWARDS
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ABOUT NETFLIX
Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services, with 283 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

Review: ‘Avicii — I’m Tim,’ starring Klas Bergling, Anki Lidén, Ash Pournouri, Flip Akeson, David Guetta, Per Sundin and Aloe Blacc

December 30, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 2018 photo of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii, in Cape Town, South Africa, in “Avicii — I’m Tim” (Photo courtesy of Candamo Film/Avicii Music AB/Netflix)

“Avicii — I’m Tim”

Directed by Henrik S. Burman

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Avicii — I’m Tim” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans and Asian people) who are friends, colleagues or family members talking about life and career of Avicii, the Swedish electronic dance music (EDM) artist whose real name was Tim Bergling, died by suicide (cutting himself with glass) in 2018, at the age of 28.

Culture Clash: Avicii was one of the top EDM artists in the world, but he struggled in with mental health and addiction issues at the height of his fame.

Culture Audience: “Avicii — I’m Tim” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Avicii and 2010s EDM/pop music.

Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii, in “Avicii — I’m Tim” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Avicii — I’m Tim” is a bittersweet documentary about this talented artist but it omits a lot of details about his life, even with rare archival interviews. It’s ultimately a cautionary tale about how fame and fortune cannot erase mental health struggles. Through archival recordings, Avicii (whose real name was Tim Bergling) is the narrator of the documentary, which gives the movie a haunting quality but serves as a vital voice for an overall conventionally made but effective biography film.

Directed by Henrik S. Burman, “Avicii — I’m Tim” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Netflix is releasing the documentary on the same day (December 31, 2024) as the Avicii concert film “Avicii — My Last Show,” which was filmed in 2018 at Ibiza’s Ushuaïa. “Avicii — I’m Tim” is told in chronological order and has the expected mix of archival footage mixed with interviews that were done exclusively for the movie.

Avicii (pronounced ah-vee-chee)/Tim Bergling was born on September 8, 1989, in Stockholm, Sweden. As he says in previous interviews, he had a very sheltered childhood, which was centered on just a five-block radius in his Stockholm neighborhood. He was the son of Klas Bergling (a manager of an office supply business) and actress Anki Lidén. Avicii’s mother and father provide some of the commentary in the documentary. Avicii’s three siblings—David Bergling, Linda Sterner and Anton Körberg—are not interviewed in the movie. In 2019, Avicii’s family established the Tim Bergling Foundation, to help with suicide prevention and people struggling with mental health issues.

“Avicii — I’m Tim” begins with a montage of Avicii’s career highlights. He can be heard saying in a voiceover: “I’ve always wanted to make timeless music. I feel like I’m filled with music. It’s my life’s biggest passion.” As a child, he says he was a class clown to avoid getting bullied. He also says he became nicer to people after a teacher told him that he had a reputation for being a snitch.

Tim began making music by remixing songs when he was 8 years old. He had diverse tastes in music, but eventually was most attracted to electronic dance music (EDM) because the technology gave him more freedom to experiment on his own. However, even before he became famous, Tim/Avicii knew he needed to find collaborators because he had no aspirations to be a singer.

In his teenage years, one of his earliest music collaborators was his best friend at the time: Flip “Philgood” Akeson, one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Akeson says that teenage Tim was “shy” and “very anxious. We were polar opposites.” Akeson adds, “He was a geek, to be honest.” Bergling chose the stage name Avicii (respelling of Avīci), which means “the lowest level of Buddhist hell.” Akeson says that he and Avicii drifted apart as Akeson went into a self-described “downward spiral” of drug addiction.

It was during these formative years that Tim developed his “night owl” lifestyle because less people bothered him at night. Tim soon caught the attention of Arash “Ash” Pournouri, who became Tim’s manager and is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. By all accounts, Pournouri becoming Tim’s manager was the turning point for Tim, who was too introverted to be a self-promoter. Pournouri’s unshakeable ambition and confidence to make Avicii a rich and famous artist, combined with Avicii’s prodigious talent, proved to be an unbeatable combination.

The rest of “Avicii — I’m Tim” chronicles Avicii’s rapid rise from EDM star to mainstream celebrity who could sell out arenas and festivals as a headliner DJ/artist. (His best-known hits are 2011’s “Levels” and 2013’s “Wake Me Up.”) He also became an in-demand producer and remixer with a reputation of not being afraid to experiment musically. But with success came enormous pressure to work as much as possible and continue making several hits.

Akeson says that when he knew Avicii, Avicii was very much against drugs, even marijuana. Toward the end of his life, Avicii had gone public about being in rehab for alcohol addiction and pills. Avicii’s anxiety also got worse in dealing with the demands of fame. As he says in an archival interview: “I was a lot happier before I was famous than after I was famous.” On April 20, 2018, Avicii committed suicide (cutting himself with glass) in Muscat, Oman, while he was on vacation.

Although “Avicii — I’m Tim” has a lot of talk about Avicii’s personal struggles and his career achievements, there’s not enough information in the documentary about what was really done behind the scenes to get him the help that he needed. Pournouri (who parted ways with Avicii in 2016) makes vague comments about people trying to do the best they can to help Avicii. Jesse Waits (a Las Vegas nightclub entrepreneur) says of Avicii: “He was very fragile and insecure. He was like a little brother to me.”

The movie, without explanation, also never talks about Avicii’s love life or how he dealt with fans/hangers-on who wanted to date him. Someone in Acivii’s position obviously gets this type of attention. (Waits tells a brief story of how he met Avicii when Avicii and two women used Waits’ home as an overnight crash pad.) But the documentary refuses to even mention any former lovers he had who might have known about his personal challenges and who possibly tried to help him. Did Avicii ever fall in love? That’s a question the documentary won’t answer.

Most of the people interviewed in “Avicii — I’m Tim” are people who knew Avicii because they had a business relationship with him. They include Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music Nordic Region; singer Aloe Blacc; DJ/artist David Guetta; Neil Jacobson, A&R executive at Interscope Records; Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay; country singer Dan Tyminski; music producer songwriter Nile Rodgers; Sony Music Publishing executive Johnny Tennander; songwriter/producer Carl Falk; musician/songwriter Mike Eizinger; music journalist Katie Bain; musician Salem Al Fakir; and singer/songwriter Joe Janiak.

In 2016, Avicii announced that he was taking a hiatus from touring because he was exhausted and wanted to work on his mental health. When people experience this type of burnout, they often feel like they are being treated like workhorse robots in their life. By refusing to show a full picture of who was in Avicii’s support system at the lowest points in his life, “Avicii — I’m Tim” sidelines some of his humanity. But with his voice as the narration, some of that humanity is retained instead of being drowned out by the documentary’s talking heads who profited from knowing Avicii in some way.

Netflix will premiere “Avicii — I’m Tim” on December 31, 2024.

Review: ‘What Jennifer Did,’ starring Bill Courtice, Deborah Gladding, Alan Cooke, Hong Ngo, Nam Nguyen, David MacDonald and Fernando Baldassini

May 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

Samantha Chang (actress) in a re-enactment scene in “What Jennifer Did” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“What Jennifer Did”

Directed by Jenny Popplewell

Some language in Vietnamese with subtitles

Culture Representation: The documentary film “What Jennifer Did” features a predominantly white group of middle-class people (with two Asians and one black person) who are interviewed about the case of Canadian woman Jennifer Pan, who went on trial for the murder of her mother and the attempted murder of her father, in a “murder for hire” crime that took place in 2010, in Markham, Ontario.

Culture Clash: Jennifer Pan was accused of planning this murder-for-hire plot because her parents disapproved of her wanting to date a convicted drug dealer and they found out she lied about having a university degree.

Culture Audience: “What Jennifer Did” will appeal primarily to people interested in true crime documentaries, but this lazily made documentary is dull, omits important information, and offers no further investigations or new insights.

Bill Courtice in “What Jennifer Did” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“What Jennifer Did” has a cheap and unfinished quality to it. This true crime documentary has a sluggish pace and leaves out many necessary facts. The re-enactments and dramatic embellishments are also tacky. The interviews for the documentary repeat a lot of what is already shown in the police interrogation archival videos.

Directed by Jenny Popplewell, “What Jennifer Did” treats viewers like idiots. For the first half of this 87-minute documentary film, it lumbers along by trying to look like a “whodunit” murder mystery, when it’s obvious who the culprit is. And if viewers don’t know who the culprit is before seeing “What Jennifer Did” (which is a turgid rehash of the case), the title of the documentary says it all. There’s no mystery here.

One of the sloppiest things about “What Jennifer Did” is that the documentary doesn’t even mention the date of the crime in an explicit way. Observant viewers will have to notice the time stamps on surveillance videos shown intermittently in the documentary to find out the year the crime took place. The prime suspect’s age on the night of the crime is never mentioned either. Viewers have to make some deductions about what her age was when the crime happened (she was 24), based on the choppy and vague interviews that the documentary has with a few of her acquaintances.

And yet, it’s repeated to the point of irritation that the Canadian city where the crime took place (Markham, Ontario) is considered a safe area, and the murder was a shock to the community. It would have been sufficient to have this “Markham is a nice area” commentary once or twice. But when it’s said in various ways four or five times in the documentary, it’s gets to be tiresome and unnecessary.

Here are the facts of the case that are not detailed in the documentary: Jennifer Pan (the prime suspect in this case) was born in Markham on June 17, 1986. Her parents—mother Bich Ha Pan and father Huei Hann Pan, also known as Hann—were Chinese heritage refugees who moved from Vietnam to Ontario at separate times (Hann relocated to Ontario in 1979), and they met when they were living in Ontario. Jennifer has a younger brother named Felix, who was born in 1989. Shockingly, Felix is never mentioned in this documentary about a crime that was motivated by turmoil in this family. The murder of Bich and the attempted murder of Hann happened in their home in Markham, on November 8, 2010.

The documentary mentions that Bich and Hann worked for the same car parts company (but doesn’t mention the name of the company), where Bich was a “supervisor,” and Hann was a “machinist.” In the documentary, these parents are described as strict, hard-working, upwardly mobile, status-conscious, law-abiding, overprotective and demanding. The documentary makes sure to mention superficial things, such as the types of cars that these parents had (Hann had a Mercedes; Bich had a Lexus), but fails to mention more meaningful and interesting aspects of these parents’ lives for better context, such as what they went through as refugees to escape from Vietnam and to start new lives in Canada.

Jennifer was at home with her parents on the night of this crime. But if you were to believe the selective and incomplete facts presented in this documentary, you would think that Jennifer is an only child. “What Jennifer Did” completely erases her brother Felix from this story. Even if Felix wasn’t available for an interview, it’s absolutely irresponsible for this documentary’s filmmakers to make it look like he doesn’t exist. (Luckily, Felix wasn’t home during the crime.) Felix’s reactions to the case are in public records which aren’t very hard to find.

A great deal of “What Jennifer Did” consists of showing archival footage of interviews that Jennifer had with investigators at a York Regional police station. After each archival clip is shown, the documentary shows its own interviews with investigators repeating what was already shown in the archival footage. Among those interviewed are police detectives Bill Courtice (who was the case’s lead investigator), Deborah Gladding (who is a victim liaison officer), Alan Cooke and David MacDonald.

In her initial interviews with police, Jennifer said on the night of November 8, 2010, three black men she didn’t know did a home invasion with guns, demanded money from her parents, and tied up Jennifer and her parents. Jennifer said that she was taken upstairs, while her parents were downstairs. Bich and Hann were both shot. Bich did not survive. Hann was shot near one of his eyes and was in a coma.

Jennifer had no injuries and made the 911 call for help while she said she had her hands tied behind her back and her shoulder tied to a staircase banister. She also said she used her hands to call 911. The 911 call is played in the documentary. When police arrived, they found cash and other valuable items in the house. They also found there was no forced entry into the home.

You don’t have to be a true crime aficionado to see major holes in Jennifer’s story from the beginning. So-called “home invader thieves” demanded cash but left a lot of cash behind. They knowingly left a witness behind with no injuries while two other witnesses were shot. And how exactly did Jennifer call 911 with her hands, when she said her hands were tied behind her back and one shoulder was tied to a staircase banister? The police initially overlooked these inconsistencies because they couldn’t believe this meek-looking, soft-spoken young woman had anything to do with this crime.

Video surveillance footage from a neighbor eventually showed that Jennifer was telling the truth that three men entered the home that night through the Pan family home’s front door. The door was unlocked, but Jennifer says she didn’t know why. Did these men force their way in, or were they invited in advance? If you don’t know the answer, then you aren’t paying attention to all the obvious clues that Jennifer’s story was a lie from the beginning.

Unfortunately, “What Jennifer Did” drags out this fake suspense in annoying ways, such as showing repetitive shots of police detectives looking contemplative while driving in their cars, or Gladding saying how she had a lot of empathy for Jennifer, whom she believed was an innocent victim—until there was indisputable proof that Jennifer wasn’t an innocent victim at all. The documentary’s re-enactment scenes (with actress Samantha Chang portraying a mid-20s Jennifer) are often shown in dream-like slow-motion. Many of the interviewees talk slowly, as if they are bored by this documentary. Many viewers who know what a good documentary is will be bored too.

One of the major aspects of the case has to do with Danny Wong, Jennifer’s drug-dealing ex-boyfriend. He was the main reason why Jennifer had so much resentment toward her parents, who understandably did not want her dating a drug dealer and forbade her from being in contact with him. Wong is not interviewed for the documentary, but the documentary has some archival video footage of an interview that he did with police after he knew that Jennifer’s parents were shot.

In this archival interview, Wong is never convincing when he tells police that he stopped being a drug dealer after he got arrested for it. At the time of the home invasion, Wong had an alibi. He claimed to be living a law-abiding life as an employee at a fast-food restaurant. Wong told police that the main reason why Jennifer’s parents didn’t approve of him was that he wasn’t making enough money in this low-paying restaurant job. (In other words, Wong was downplaying his drug-dealing activity in this police interview.)

Jennifer is not interviewed for the documentary, nor does she need to be. She’s a proven pathological liar and doesn’t need to have a platform to say more lies. She still maintains that she never planned to have her parents murdered. An update on her case is mentioned in the documentary’s epilogue.

Among the many big lies that Jennifer told that were exposed in this case was Jennifer fooled her parents and other people into thinking she graduated with a pharmacology degree from the University of Toronto. She was never enrolled in the university and forged a University of Toronto degree as part of the deceit. It’s mentioned that Jennifer chose pharmacology because she and her parents knew that her grades weren’t good enough in high school for her to become a doctor, lawyer, scientist or engineer, which were the preferred professions that her parents wanted her to have.

However, the documentary never explains how Jennifer’s parents—who are repeatedly described as overbearing and intrusive about what Jennifer did with her time—could be conned into not going to a graduation ceremony that Jennifer knew did not exist for her. The documentary mentions that Hann was so controlling, he used to drive Jennifer to Ryerson University (in Toronto), when she fooled her parents into thinking she was enrolled there, before she faked her enrollment in the University of Toronto. It’s also mentioned that when Jennifer was a child, her parents pushed her into entering pianist competitions that she often won and had plenty of trophies and photos to prove it.

How could these “overbearing” parents miss out on a graduation ceremony, which would be a major milestone that these parents would want photos of too? The answer: Jennifer told her family there were no graduation ceremony tickets available for them, according to Felix’s court testimony detailed in journalist Jeremy Grimaldi’s 2016 non-fiction book “A Daughter’s Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story.” Felix also testified that Jennifer lied by stating a friend who took the graduation photos went back to Hong Kong without giving Jennifer the photos.

Jennifer’s deception about the graduation ceremony is one of many details that the documentary overlooks and does not explain. Even if Jennifer was going to financially gain from her parent’s deaths, through an inheritance and/or life insurance policy, the documentary makes it look like Jennifer would have been her parents’ only heir, when that is simply not true. The documentary never mentions how other Pan family members felt about this tragedy and how they reacted to Jennifer being under suspicion for masterminding this “murder for hire” plot.

“What Jennifer Did” is also vague about Jennifer’s employment history after she faked graduating from the University of Toronto. It’s briefly mentioned that she had trouble finding a job as a pharmacist. It doesn’t take a genius to know why she couldn’t be a pharmacist. However, the documentary doesn’t say if she found other types of work or had any type of employment at the time of the crime.

Jennifer was accused of paying for these hit men to carry out this murder-for-hire plot. The money that her parents gave to Jennifer for her fake “university expenses” had already been spent long ago. Where did she get the money to pay for this murder for hire? Don’t expect “What Jennifer Did” to answer that question.

And you can’t really trust a documentary that refuses to mention the important fact that the two victim parents had another child who was affected by this horrible crime. The documentary presents a factually incorrect narrative impression that Jennifer was an only child who felt emotionally smothered by tyrannical parents, who both wanted to keep her as sheltered and family-oriented as possible. But if these parents had so much suffocating control over Jennifer’s life, why didn’t they check up on Jennifer and her supposed university enrollment?

It’s not quite victim blaming, but the documentary presents a narrow and misleading view of the Pan family by having missing or contradictory information. Because “What Jennifer Did” deliberately does not mention Jennifer’s brother Felix, the documentary does not include the parental relationship that Bich and Hann had with Felix, or the sibling relationship that Jennifer had with Felix, to further explain the family’s dynamics. Did the parents treat Felix differently from Jennifer? Obviously, the documentary doesn’t answer that question because it wants to pretend that Felix does not exist.

Three people who knew Jennifer are interviewed in the documentary: Hong Ngo, a Pan family friend; Fernando Baldassini, who was Jennifer’s piano teacher; and Nam Nguyen, who was Jennifer’s friend in high school. Ngo says she knew about Jennifer faking her university education and says that Jennifer’s parents demanded that Jennifer pay back the money they thought went to college tuition. However, the documentary does such a bad job of interviewing people, it’s never made clear when Ngo found out this information.

Baldassini doesn’t offer any information that’s substantial, since it’s obvious he didn’t know what really went on behind closed doors in the Pan family home. Baldassini says the only sign of trouble that he saw was when Jennifer broke down and cried one day during a piano lesson. According to Baldassini, Jennifer said during this meltdown that her parents were driving her crazy. Baldassini says it was the first and only time he saw Jennifer distressed. Not surprisingly, Baldassini says he was completely shocked when Jennifer was accused of masterminding the crime that got her parents shot.

Out of all the interviewees, Nguyen has the most information to share about Jennifer’s volatile relationship with Wong, which lasted off and on, for six or seven years. Nguyen says that Jennifer and Wong frequently argued and broke up. The final breakup was in 2008, and the former couple agreed to be platonic friends. Wong had a girlfriend when the crime happened. By all accounts, Jennifer was obsessed with Wong and was not happy that he had moved on to dating someone else. Nguyen also mentions that he, Jennifer and many of the students at their high school came from Asian immigrant families who expected all family members to be high achievers.

As for the three men who entered the Pan family’s home that night, their names are mentioned, but their photos are never shown in the documentary. It’s a very strange and unexplained omission, considering the outcome of the case. These omissions are just more examples of shoddy filmmaking on display. Any courtroom trials in this case are just briefly mentioned as an epilogue in the documentary.

“What Jennifer Did” completely ignores the racial implications of this case. Many people (including members of the media and investigating police officers) were quick to believe that three black men committed this crime on their own and that a seemingly innocent-looking Asian woman couldn’t have anything to do with it, even though there were massive early clues that she was involved. The police got a lot of answers and evidence when they finally did something they should’ve done earlier: investigate Jennifer Pan’s phone records.

Between the unexplained omissions of important details and the lackluster way that this story is told, “What Jennifer Did” is a disappointing and irresponsible documentary that could have told so much more to this story. The documentary obviously took more time setting up props and hiring actors for re-enactments than caring about presenting a lot of crucial facts. Viewers will learn more from reading the Wikipedia page for Jennifer Pan than in wasting time watching “What Jennifer Did.”

Netflix premiered “What Jennifer Did” on May 10, 2024.

Review: ‘Lover, Stalker, Killer, starring Dave Kroupa, Nancy Raney, Jim Doty, Ryan Avis, Tony Kava, Amy Flora and Chris LeGrow

February 19, 2024

by Carla Hay

Dave Kroupa in “Lover, Stalker, Killer” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Lover, Stalker, Killer”

Directed by Sam Hobkinson

Culture Representation: Taking place in Nebraska and Iowa, the documentary film “Lover, Stalker, Killer” features an all-white group of people representing the working-class and middle-class discussing a case involving stalking and murder.

Culture Clash: A bachelor, who works as an automative employee, looks for love online and has the nightmarish experience of getting involved with a woman who stalked him and his loved ones and committed murder. 

Culture Audience: “Lover, Stalker, Killer” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries that have an uncluttered, cohesive storytelling style.

Dave Kroupa and Amy Flora (both in back row) with their two children in an undated archival photo from the 2000s in “Lover, Stalker, Killer” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Lover, Stalker, Killer” is a skillfully told true-crime documentary that keeps its perspective centered entirely on the victims, their loved ones and law enforcement. It’s a bizarre and fascinating case that doesn’t glorify the perpetrator. The perpetrator’s point of view isn’t really needed since there are no legitimate excuses for the heinous crimes committed in this case.

Directed by Sam Hobkinson, “Lover, Stalker, Killer” has an uncluttered, easy-to-follow style that is gripping from beginning to end, even if viewers already know the answers to the mystery and how the case ended after it went to trial. The documentary does not have interviews with the perpetrator, the perpetrator’s friends or family, or any defense attorneys. These omissions might irritate some viewers who want to know more about the perpetrator, but the more important takeaway from this documentary is how the survivors of these crimes coped with their ordeals and sought justice.

“Lover, Stalker, Killer” is told mainly from the perspective of Dave Kroupa, a longtime mechanic/automotive technician in Nebraska, who became one of the targets of a homicidal stalker. He is the main narrator of the documentary, which is formatted like a “whodunit mystery” to keep viewers in suspense if they don’t know the whole story. Kroupa’s online dating activities were the catalyst for the perpetrator to cause the murder and mayhem that damaged many people’s lives.

The problems started in 2012, when Kroupa had recently moved to Omaha, Nebraska, after a breakup with a former co-worker named Amy Flora, who was his live-in partner. Kroupa and Flora became a couple in 2000, and had two children (a son and a daughter) together. Flora and Kroupa both say in the documentary that their breakup was because they eventually grew apart.

Kroupa describes how his love life was in 2012 this way: “I was wild and free at 35, and I was determined to enjoy it.” He went on multiple dating websites, including Plenty of Fish, which is the only dating website mentioned in the documentary. Through these online dating sites, he met several women. Early on in his online dating experiences, he dated two women (both single mothers) around the same period of time. Both women were about the same age as Kroupa was at the time.

Kroupa says in the documentary that he made it clear to both women from the beginning that he didn’t want to be in a committed or monogamous relationship and he was only interested in casually dating them. He says that both women willingly agreed to this arrangement. Kroupa describes his relationships with both women as fun and compatible in the beginning.

The woman he dated first was Shanna “Liz” Golyar, who had a son and a daughter and owned a cleaning company in Omaha. When things started to cool down between Kroupa and Golyar, Kroupa began dating Cari Farver, an office worker with an interest in computers and who had a son. Farver lived in Macedonia, Iowa, but she worked in Omaha, near the automotive company where Kroupa had been working at the time.

Shortly after Kroupa began dating Farver (about two weeks), Golyar unexpectedly came over to Kroupa’s house to pick up something that she left behind. Kroupa and Farver happened to be on a date at Kroupa’s place at the time. Farver also sometimes stayed overnight at Kroupa’s home since it was close to her job. The two women were briefly introduced, and then Golyar left.

It wasn’t long after this incident when Kroupa began getting harassing messages by text and email from someone identifying herself as Farver. The messages would have insults and other derogatory remarks about Kroupa and Golyar. Kroupa ended the relationship with Farver, but the harassment escalated and eventually included stalking; arson of Golyar’s home; a break-in and burglary of Kroupa’s home; vandalism of Kroupa’s car and Golyar’s car; and violent threats to Kroupa, Golyar, Flora, and the children of Kroupa and Flora.

Meanwhile, Farver couldn’t be located after the harassment began, even when law enforcement did extensive stakeouts and investigations. Farver’s mother Nancy Raney (who is interviewed in the documentary) reported to law enforcement that she received messages by social media, email and text from someone identifying as Farver who was using Farver’s phone and accounts for email and social media. The messages said that Farver had taken a job (with an annual salary of $100,000) in Nebraska and that she didn’t want anyone looking for her. The messages also said that Farver expected her mother to look after Farver’s son.

Farver had bipolar disorder, but Raney insisted to investigators that this mental illness was not the reason why Farver disappeared. Raney also firmly believed that Farver was not doing the harassing and had a feeling that something bad must have happened to Farver, who would not willingly abandon her son. Raney reported Farver as a missing person to authorities, because Raney had not seen or spoken to her daughter by phone after getting these written-only messages.

The news media and investigators at the time could only point to Farver as the main suspect in the harassment, which continued over the course of three years. Farver still could not be located, and there was no proof that she was still alive. It’s at this point in the documentary that it’s easy to figure out who the culprit is and the real motives for these crimes.

By 2015, the case took a turn through the diligent efforts of three people working at the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Iowa: Jim Doty, a sergeant; his best friend Ryan Avis, an investigator; and Tony Kava, who worked in the information technology department. What’s even more remarkable is that Kava did most of his work while having a brain tumor, but he decided to delay having brain surgery until an arrest had been made in the case. Doty, Avis, and Kava are interviewed in the documentary to given an inside account of how they were able to solve the case.

Other people interviewed are Chris LeGrow (who was a detective at the time for the Omaha Police Department) and Brenda Beadle, a chief deputy at Douglas County Attorney’s Office in Nebraska. All of the interviewees in the documentary give their crucial views and their step-by-step process in this disturbing case. Ultimately, “Lover, Stalker, Killer” is a compelling story about how crime victims and law enforcement can work together to get justice.

Netflix premiered “Lover, Stalker, Killer” on February 9, 2024

2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards: ‘Succession,’ is the top nominee

January 10, 2024

Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in “Succession” (Photo by Claudette Barius/HBO)

The following is a press release from the Screen Actors Guild:

[Editor’s note: “Succession” has five nominations. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” have four nominations each.]

Nominees for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® honoring outstanding individual, cast and ensemble performances for the past year were announced by Issa Rae (Barbie, American Fiction, Insecure) and Kumail Nanjiani (Welcome to Chippendales, The Big Sick) via Instagram Live. The nominees for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles were announced by SAG Awards Committee Members Jason George and Woody Schultz with an introduction by SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher.

The 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, produced by Silent House Productions in partnership with SAG-AFTRA, will stream live globally on Netflix Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall.

To replay the announcement, follow the SAG Awards® on Instagram @sagawards

As previously announced, the legendary actor, singer, producer, writer, and director Barbra Streisand will be honored with the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievements and humanitarian accomplishments during the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony.

One of awards season’s premier events, the SAG Awards annually celebrates the outstanding motion picture and television performances from the previous calendar year (SAG Awards Eligibility Period: January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023). Of the top industry honors presented to actors, only the SAG Awards are selected entirely by performers’ peers in SAG-AFTRA with 119,515 eligible voters. Final voting opens on Wednesday, Jan. 17 and closes at Noon PT on Friday, Feb. 23.
 

The Motion Picture Nominees are:
 
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
BRADLEY COOPER / Leonard Bernstein – “MAESTRO”
COLMAN DOMINGO / Bayard Rustin – “RUSTIN”
PAUL GIAMATTI / Paul Hunham – “THE HOLDOVERS”
CILLIAN MURPHY / J. Robert Oppenheimer – “OPPENHEIMER”
JEFFREY WRIGHT / Thelonious “Monk” Ellison – “AMERICAN FICTION”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
ANNETTE BENING / Diana Nyad – “NYAD”
LILY GLADSTONE / Mollie Burkhart – “KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON”
CAREY MULLIGAN / Felicia Montealegre – “MAESTRO”
MARGOT ROBBIE / Barbie – “BARBIE”
EMMA STONE / Bella Baxter – “POOR THINGS”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
STERLING K. BROWN / Clifford Ellison – “AMERICAN FICTION”
WILLEM DAFOE / Godwin Baxter – “POOR THINGS”
ROBERT DE NIRO / William Hale – “KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON”
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. / Lewis Strauss – “OPPENHEIMER”
RYAN GOSLING / Ken – “BARBIE”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
EMILY BLUNT / Kitty Oppenheimer – “OPPENHEIMER”
DANIELLE BROOKS / Sofia – “THE COLOR PURPLE”
PENÉLOPE CRUZ / Laura Ferrari – “FERRARI”
JODIE FOSTER / Bonnie Stoll – “NYAD”
DA’VINE JOY RANDOLPH / Mary Lamb – “THE HOLDOVERS”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
AMERICAN FICTION
ERIKA ALEXANDER / Coraline
ADAM BRODY / Wiley Valdespino
STERLING K. BROWN / Clifford Ellison
KEITH DAVID / Willy the Wonker
JOHN ORTIZ / Arthur
ISSA RAE / Sintara Golden
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS / Lisa Ellison
LESLIE UGGAMS / Agnes Ellison
JEFFREY WRIGHT / Thelonious “Monk” Ellison
 
BARBIE
MICHAEL CERA / Allan
WILL FERRELL / Mattel CEO
AMERICA FERRERA / Gloria
RYAN GOSLING / Ken
ARIANA GREENBLATT / Sasha
KATE MCKINNON / Barbie
HELEN MIRREN / Narrator
RHEA PERLMAN / Ruth
ISSA RAE / Barbie
MARGOT ROBBIE / Barbie
 
THE COLOR PURPLE
HALLE BAILEY / Young Nettie
FANTASIA BARRINO / Celie
JON BATISTE / Grady
DANIELLE BROOKS / Sofia
CIARA / Nettie
COLMAN DOMINGO / Mister
AUNJANUE ELLIS-TAYLOR / Mama
LOUIS GOSSETT, JR. / Ol’ Mister
COREY HAWKINS / Harpo
TARAJI P. HENSON / Shug Avery
PHYLICIA PEARL MPASI / Young Celie
GABRIELLA WILSON “H.E.R.” / Squeak
 
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
TANTOO CARDINAL / Lizzie Q
ROBERT DE NIRO / William Hale
LEONARDO DICAPRIO / Ernest Burkhart
BRENDAN FRASER / W.S. Hamilton
LILY GLADSTONE / Mollie Burkhart
JOHN LITHGOW / Prosecutor Peter Leaward
JESSE PLEMONS / Tom White
 
OPPENHEIMER
CASEY AFFLECK / Boris Pash
EMILY BLUNT / Kitty Oppenheimer
KENNETH BRANAGH / Niels Bohr
MATT DAMON / Leslie Groves
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. / Lewis Strauss
JOSH HARTNETT / Ernest Lawrence
RAMI MALEK / David Hill
CILLIAN MURPHY / J. Robert Oppenheimer
FLORENCE PUGH / Jean Tatlock
 
The Television Program Nominees are:
 
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
MATT BOMER / Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller – “FELLOW TRAVELERS”
JON HAMM / Roy Tillman – “FARGO”
DAVID OYELOWO / Bass Reeves – “LAWMEN: BASS REEVES”
TONY SHALHOUB / Adrian Monk – “MR. MONK’S LAST CASE: A MONK MOVIE”
STEVEN YEUN / Danny Cho – “BEEF”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
UZO ADUBA / Edie Flowers – “PAINKILLER”
KATHRYN HAHN / Clare Pierce – “TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS”
BRIE LARSON / Elizabeth Zott – “LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY”
BEL POWLEY / Miep Gies – “A SMALL LIGHT”
ALI WONG / Amy Lau – “BEEF”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
BRIAN COX / Logan Roy – “SUCCESSION”
BILLY CRUDUP / Cory Ellison – “THE MORNING SHOW”
KIERAN CULKIN / Roman Roy – “SUCCESSION”
MATTHEW MACFADYEN / Tom Wambsgans – “SUCCESSION”
PEDRO PASCAL / Joel – “THE LAST OF US”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
JENNIFER ANISTON / Alex Levy – “THE MORNING SHOW”
ELIZABETH DEBICKI / Princess Diana – “THE CROWN”
BELLA RAMSEY / Ellie – “THE LAST OF US”
KERI RUSSELL / Kate Wyler – “THE DIPLOMAT”
SARAH SNOOK / Shiv Roy – “SUCCESSION”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
BRETT GOLDSTEIN / Roy Kent – “TED LASSO”
BILL HADER / Barry – “BARRY”
EBON MOSS-BACHRACH / Richard “Richie” Jerimovich – “THE BEAR”
JASON SUDEIKIS / Ted Lasso – “TED LASSO”
JEREMY ALLEN WHITE / Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto – “THE BEAR”
 
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
ALEX BORSTEIN / Susie Myerson – “THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL”
RACHEL BROSNAHAN / Miriam “Midge” Maisel – “THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL”
QUINTA BRUNSON / Janine Teagues – “ABBOTT ELEMENTARY”
AYO EDEBIRI / Sydney Adamu – “THE BEAR”
HANNAH WADDINGHAM / Rebecca Welton – “TED LASSO”
 
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
THE CROWN
KHALID ABDALLA / Dodi Fayed
SEBASTIAN BLUNT / Prince Edward
BERTIE CARVEL / Tony Blair
SALIM DAW / Mohamed Al Fayed
ELIZABETH DEBICKI / Princess Diana
LUTHER FORD / Prince Harry
CLAUDIA HARRISON / Princess Anne
LESLEY MANVILLE / Princess Margaret
ED MCVEY / Prince William
JAMES MURRAY / Prince Andrew
JONATHAN PRYCE / Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
IMELDA STAUNTON / Queen Elizabeth II
MARCIA WARREN / Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
DOMINIC WEST / Prince Charles
OLIVIA WILLIAMS / Camilla Parker Bowles
 
THE GILDED AGE
BEN AHLERS / Jack
ASHLIE ATKINSON / Mamie Fish
CHRISTINE BARANSKI / Agnes van Rhijn
DENÉE BENTON / Peggy Scott
NICOLE BRYDON BLOOM / Maud Beaton
MICHAEL CERVERIS / Watson
CARRIE COON / Bertha Russell
KELLEY CURRAN / Mrs. Winterton
TAISSA FARMIGA / Gladys Russell
DAVID FURR / Dashiell Montgomery
JACK GILPIN / Church
WARD HORTON / Charles Fane
LOUISA JACOBSON / Marian Brook
SIMON JONES / Bannister
SULLIVAN JONES / T. Thomas Fortune
CELIA KEENAN-BOLGER / Mrs. Bruce
NATHAN LANE / Ward McAllister
MATILDA LAWLER / Frances Montgomery
ROBERT SEAN LEONARD / Luke Forte
AUDRA MCDONALD / Dorothy Scott
DEBRA MONK / Armstrong
DONNA MURPHY / Mrs. Astor
KRISTINE NIELSEN / Mrs. Bauer
CYNTHIA NIXON / Ada Brook
KELLI O’HARA / Aurora Fane
PATRICK PAGE / Richard Clay
HARRY RICHARDSON / Larry Russell
TAYLOR RICHARDSON / Bridget
BLAKE RITSON / Oscar van Rhijn
JEREMY SHAMOS / Mr. Gilbert
DOUGLAS SILLS / Borden
MORGAN SPECTOR / George Russell
JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON / Arthur Scott
ERIN WILHELMI / Adelheid
 
THE LAST OF US
PEDRO PASCAL / Joel
BELLA RAMSEY / Ellie
 
THE MORNING SHOW
JENNIFER ANISTON / Alex Levy
NICOLE BEHARIE / Christina Hunter
SHARI BELAFONTE / Julia
NESTOR CARBONELL / Yanko Flores
BILLY CRUDUP / Cory Ellison
MARK DUPLASS / Chip Black
JON HAMM / Paul Marks
THEO IYER / Kyle
HANNAH LEDER / Isabella
GRETA LEE / Stella Bak
JULIANNA MARGULIES / Laura Peterson
TIG NOTARO / Amanda Robinson
KAREN PITTMAN / Mia Jordan
REESE WITHERSPOON / Bradley Jackson
 
SUCCESSION
NICHOLAS BRAUN / Greg Hirsch
JULIANA CANFIELD / Jess Jordan
BRIAN COX / Logan Roy
KIERAN CULKIN / Roman Roy
DAGMARA DOMINCZYK / Karolina Novotney
PETER FRIEDMAN / Frank Vernon
JUSTINE LUPE / Willa
MATTHEW MACFADYEN / Tom Wambsgans
ARIAN MOAYED / Stewy Hosseini
SCOTT NICHOLSON / Colin Stiles
DAVID RASCHE / Karl Muller
ALAN RUCK / Connor Roy
ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD / Lukas Matsson
J. SMITH-CAMERON / Gerri Kellman
SARAH SNOOK / Shiv Roy
FISHER STEVENS / Hugo Baker
JEREMY STRONG / Kendall Roy
ZOË WINTERS / Kerry Castellabate
 
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY
QUINTA BRUNSON / Janine Teagues
WILLIAM STANFORD DAVIS / Mr. Johnson
JANELLE JAMES / Ava Coleman
CHRIS PERFETTI / Jacob Hill
SHERYL LEE RALPH / Barbara Howard
LISA ANN WALTER / Melissa Schemmenti
TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS / Gregory Eddie
 
BARRY
ANTHONY CARRIGAN / NoHo Hank
SARAH GOLDBERG / Sally Reed
ZACHARY GOLINGER / John
BILL HADER / Barry
ANDRE HYLAND / Jason
FRED MELAMED / Tom Posorro
CHARLES PARNELL / DA Buckner
STEPHEN ROOT / Monroe Fuches
TOBIE WINDHAM / Damian
HENRY WINKLER / Gene Cousineau
ROBERT WISDOM / Jim Moss
 
THE BEAR
LIONEL BOYCE / Marcus
JOSE CERVANTES JR. / Angel
LIZA COLÓN-ZAYAS / Tina
AYO EDEBIRI / Sydney Adamu
ABBY ELLIOTT / Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto
RICHARD ESTERAS / Manny
EDWIN LEE GIBSON / Ebraheim
MOLLY GORDON / Claire
COREY HENDRIX / Sweeps
MATTY MATHESON / Neil Fak
EBON MOSS-BACHRACH / Richard “Richie” Jerimovich
OLIVER PLATT / Jimmy “Cicero” Kalinowski
JEREMY ALLEN WHITE / Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto
 
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
GERALD CAESAR / Ty
MICHAEL CYRIL CREIGHTON / Howard Morris
LINDA EMOND / Donna
SELENA GOMEZ / Mabel Mora
ALLISON GUINN / K.T.
STEVE MARTIN / Charles-Haden Savage
ASHLEY PARK / Kimber
DON DARRYL RIVERA / Bobo
PAUL RUDD / Ben Glenroy
JEREMY SHAMOS / Dickie Glenroy
MARTIN SHORT / Oliver Putnam
MERYL STREEP / Loretta Durkin
WESLEY TAYLOR / Cliff
JASON VEASEY / Jonathan
JESSE WILLIAMS / Tobert
 
TED LASSO
ANNETTE BADLAND / Mae Green
KOLA BOKINNI / Isaac McAdoo
EDYTA BUDNIK / Jade
ADAM COLBORNE / Baz Primrose
PHIL DUNSTER / Jamie Tartt
CRISTO FERNÁNDEZ / Dani Rojas
KEVIN “KG” GARRY / Paul La Fleur
BRETT GOLDSTEIN / Roy Kent
BILLY HARRIS / Colin Hughes
ANTHONY HEAD / Rupert Mannion
BRENDAN HUNT / Coach Beard
TOHEEB JIMOH / Sam Obisanya
JAMES LANCE / Trent Crimm
NICK MOHAMMED / Nathan Shelley
JASON SUDEIKIS / Ted Lasso
JEREMY SWIFT / Leslie Higgins
JUNO TEMPLE / Keeley Jones
HANNAH WADDINGHAM / Rebecca Welton
BRONSON WEBB / Jeremy Blumenthal
KATY WIX / Barbara
The Stunt Ensemble Honors Nominees are:
 
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
BARBIE
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE
 
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
AHSOKA
BARRY
BEEF
THE LAST OF US
THE MANDALORIAN
 
About the Screen Actors Guild Awards®
The 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, presented by SAG-AFTRA with Screen Actors Guild Awards, LLC will be executive produced by Jon Brockett and Silent House Productions alongside producers for SAG-AFTRA JoBeth Williams, Daryl Anderson, Jason George, Elizabeth McLaughlin and Woody Schultz. The ceremony will stream live globally on Netflix Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall. One of awards season’s premier events, the SAG Awards annually celebrates the outstanding motion picture and television performances of the year. Voted on by SAG-AFTRA’s robust and diverse membership of 119,000+ performers, the SAG Awards has the largest voting body on the awards circuit. Beloved for its style, simplicity, and genuine warmth, the show has become an industry favorite and one of the most prized honors since its debut in 1995.
 
About Silent House Group
Formed in 2021 by CEO Baz Halpin, Silent House Group is comprised of three companies – Silent House Productions, Silent House Studios, and Silent House Events – which together form one of Hollywood’s most highly regarded, full-service design and production agencies focused on live and unscripted programming across all media platforms. The agency kicked off 2024 by winning the Outstanding Variety Special Creative Arts Emmy Award for their work on Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love, in addition to four other Emmy nominations for the special, and up next will produce the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards as Netflix’s first-ever live awards show. Most recently, the award-winning agency produced the Golden Globe-nominated blockbuster film Taylor Swift I The Eras Tour in partnership with Taylor Swift Productions and has worked with such prominent clients as Beyonce, Adele, Katy Perry, Usher, Harry Styles, Jonas Brothers, Apple, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, CNN, among many others. For more information on Silent House Group, please visit: https://www.silent-house.com.
 
About Netflix
Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services with over 247 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

Review: ‘Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare,’ starring Debbie Cartisano, Lance Jaggar, Chris Smith, Sharon Fuqua and Charles Brofman

December 29, 2023

by Carla Hay

An archival Challenger Foundation photo from “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare”

Directed by Liza Williams

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” features an almost all-white group of people (with one Asian person) talking about their experiences with controversial entrepreneur Steve Cartisano and the high-priced “wilderness therapy” camps that he founded for troubled juveniles.

Culture Clash: Cartisano, who died of a heart attack in 2019, at the age of 63, was sued several times and had many allegations that his camps illegally abused the children who were forced to be there. 

Culture Audience: “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries that show how abuse and exploitation are excused or covered up, but some questions remain unanswered by the end of the movie.

An archival photo of Debbie Cartisano and Steve Cartisano from “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” succeeds in being a cautionary documentary about the dangers of boot camps that claim to be “tough love” rehab for juvenile delinquents. But the movie needed better investigative journalism about the sexual abuse allegations mentioned near the end. Sensitive viewers, be warned: This documentary is disturbing in its details of child abuse. It’s also the type of documentary that will be infuriating to anyone who thinks the perpetrators exploited the system to get away with horrible acts of violence and other crimes.

Directed by Liza Williams, “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” begins with an awkward mention of celebrity socialite Paris Hilton going public in 2020 about experiencing physical and emotional abuse at various group facilities that she was sent to when she was a “wild child” teenager. At the beginning and end of the documentary, there’s archival footage of a 2021 press conference where Hilton and Ro Khanna (a U.S. Representative from California) made statements, after a congressional hearing to introduce a bill to protect children from abuse in group facilities. After showing this footage in the beginning, the documentary mentions that the documentary actually isn’t about Hilton’s experiences but about the “wilderness therapy” camps founded by Steve Cartisano, who is considered to be the “godfather” of this controversial way of dealing with troubled kids. (In 2019, when he was 63, Cartisano died of a heart attack while he had cancer.)

The mention of Hilton is the documentary’s way of saying that if this abuse could happen to a wealthy heiress, it can happen to anyone. However, it comes across as just using a celebrity name to hook people into watching the movie. The fact of the matter is that “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” is about the types of experiences where children were isolated and deprived of food and bathroom facilities for long periods of time and forced to do strenuous physical activities outdoors in extreme weather conditions. This not the same type of abuse that Hilton said she experienced at a boarding school such as Provo Canyon School in Utah, where she says she was treated like an indoor prisoner and deprived of sunlight for long periods of time.

“Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” places much of the blame for “wildnerness therapy” camps on Cartisano, who is considered to be the first person to take this concept and market it into a business that can generate millions of revenue every year. These camps do not operate like juvenile detention facilities, where kids are sent by the court system. These camps have the kids’ parents or legal guardians sign over the right for the kids to be forcibly taken to these camps, with the intent of punishing the kids enough to scare them out of their troublemaking ways.

Cartisano was a former U.S. Air Force instructor and military special forces officer who had a troubled childhood himself. As mentioned in the documentary, his biological parents gave him up for adoption, and then took him back when he was 2 years old. His biological mother was a heroin addict who died when he was 17. His biological father was reportedly physically abusive.

“Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” has horrific stories from survivors of programs founded by Cartisano, who was mostly based in Utah. And even though he was sued and faced numerous allegations of child abuse in these programs, he would just shut down a program when it had too many legal problems and then start a new business under a different name and in a different location. According to the documentary, rather than toning down the extreme methods used in each program, Cartisano made each subsequent program worse than its predecessor.

First, there was the Challenger Foundation, which Cartisano founded in 1988. The Challenger Foundation sent kids to an isolated area in Utah and made them go on 500-mile hikes to get food. The children were also deprived of bathroom facilities and indoor sleeping quarters. The Challenger Foundation’s biggest controversy was the death of Kristen Chase, a 16-year-old who died in 1990, after she hiked a long distance in extreme heat while enrolled in the Challenger Foundation. Chase’s tragic passing resulted in a wrongful-death lawsuit, whose outcome is detailed in the documentary.

Legal and financial problems led to the demise of the Challenger Foundation, but that didn’t stop Cartisano from being in the “child reform” business. In the early 1990s, he moved on to founding HealthCare America, based in St. Thomas and later in Costa Rica. Instead of making the kids hike in a Utah desert, the kids had to live in harsh conditions on sailboats that went to various places in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

Pacific Coast Academy, based in Samoa, was Cartisano’s business in the 2000s. He often used the alias Steve Michaels during his Pacific Coast Academy years. Pacific Coast Academy had plans to build a massive facility and used many of the kids in the program as unpaid and untrained workers to do the construction. Critics of Cartisano say that he intentionally misled desperate parents into thinking that the kids enrolled in his programs would be in a safe and healthy environment.

The Challenger Foundation had a 63-day program, but people interviewed in the documentary say that it was not unusual for kids enrolled in the program to stay longer than 63 days if they were being “punished” for not complying with the rules. Other kids stayed longer than 63 days, simply because their parents didn’t want them to come home after the 63 days. Of course, there was an obvious incentive for the camps to extend the enrollment: more money could be made from the people paying to have the kids at the camp.

The documentary makes it clear that it’s not a coincidence that after the scandals that Cartisano had in the United States, he took his operations to countries or territories that had less restrictive laws about the type of business that he was doing. “Hell Camp” also has stories of how Cartisano’s employees would dodge authorities who would investigate complaints about Cartisano’s businesses. A disclaimer at the end of the documentary mentions that any businesses that currently have the names Challenger Foundation, HealthCare America and Pacific Coast Academy have nothing to do with companies founded by Cartisano.

Several survivors of Cartisano’s “hell camps” are interviewed in the documentary. The survivors are identified by their first names only, but their faces and voices are undisguised. The survivors who are interviewed were sent to Cartisano’s camps as teenagers, usually ages 13 to 16. Almost all of them say that the reasons they were sent to the camp were because they had drug problems. Some enrollees had other issues too, such as committing petty crimes, skipping school, or running away from home.

All of them describe experiencing physical abuse from Cartisano’s employees, including assaults, lack of medical care for injuries, food deprivation, sleep deprivation, and basic hygiene deprivation. And they say there was constant verbal and emotional abuse. All of them also say that they’ve had long-term trauma from these terrible experiences.

Challenger Foundation survivors interviewed in the documentary are Nadine, who was in the program in 1989, at the age of 15; a woman named Kinney, who was in the program in 1988, at the age of 13; and Matthew, who was in the program in 1990, at age 15. HealthCare America survivors interviewed are Adam, who was in the program in 1993, at the age of 13; and Ashley, who was in the program in 1993, at the age of 15.

The Pacific Coast Academy survivors who are interviewed are Kurt, who was in the program in 2000, at age 15; and Amber, who was in the program in 2000, at the age of 14. Kurt and Amber knew each other as friendly acquaintances before being in the program, but that all changed when Kurt and other teens in the program were ordered to torture some of the enrollees, including Amber. Kurt admits to it in the documentary, but he says he was just following orders and was too afraid to say no.

Adam’s stoic father Larry is also interviewed and doesn’t seem to have much regret about sending Adam to the HealthCare America program, although he does get a little emotional when he watches an old video of him making a surprise visit to a sobbing Adam in Costa Rica. Larry also says he didn’t know how brutally Adam was treated until it was too late. Larry is one of two parents of a camp survivor to be interviewed in the documentary.

By contrast, Matthew’s mother Kari expresses regret about putting him in the Challenger Foundation program. She remembers thinking at the time about the Challenger Foundation: “I didn’t know what else to do, but this sounds good.” Sharon Fuqua, who sued Cartisano for the wrongful death of her daughter Kristen Chase, is also interviewed, along with Fuqua’s son David, who is Kristen’s younger brother.

Cartisano’s family members and close associates who are interviewed in the documentary don’t really deny the abuse, but they go out of their way to downplay his responsibility in being the leader of a business that enabled or encouraged the abuse. His ex-wife Debbie Cartisano is the one who does the most to push the narrative that Steve was a “good guy” who “meant well” with these programs, but the way his employees behaved was “beyond his control” when he wasn’t at the camps. She also seems more interested in talking about the financial hardships that she had to go through every time Steve had shut down another one of his businesses, rather than Debbie acknowledging any suffering that any child victims experienced because of those businesses.

Also interviewed are Debbie and Steve’s daughter Catie, who openly talks about her troubled teen years of drug addiction and how she recovered from it. Her brother Dave also had the same problems and was sent to Pacific Coast Academy. (He is not interviewed in the documentary, which mentions what happened to Dave.)

Catie says in the documentary: “My dad was brilliant.” But she admits that the scandals and controversies took a toll on the family, and she wanted him to change careers: “I wanted him to do something different. I wanted our family to be normal.” Debbie also says that she wanted Steve to get out of the “child reform” business, but he refused.

The only former Cartisano camp employee interviewed in the documentary is Lance “Horsehair” Jaggar, who says that he immediately bonded with Steve because they were both veterans of the U.S. Air Force. Jaggar is unapologetic about the harsh tactics that were used on the children at these camps. Jaggar says that he doesn’t believe in beatings as punishment, but he thinks spankings are perfectly acceptable. The documentary has archival footage of Jaggar yelling insults at some of the Challenger Foundation kids. You get the feeling that whatever was on camera was very tame compared to what wasn’t on camera.

Jaggar makes this not-very-believable comment about how the kids were treated in these camps: “We broke them down, but we didn’t break them down to hurt them. We didn’t break them down to punish them. We broke them down to get rid of the old crap and help them be a better and more positive person.”

He adds with a sadistic smirk, “Some of the kids were so scared, they’d almost pass out. And that was fine by me. I wanted them to have a little fear. [For] a lot of these kids, this was it, or they were going to jail.”

Also interviewed in the documentary are reporter Chris Smith, who investigated and did news reports of Cartisano camp operations and scandals; attorney Charles Brofman, who represented Steve in several lawsuits; Max Jackson, former sheriff of Utah’s Kane County; and a former U.S. Embassy worker who is only identified by her first name: Mary Lou. The documentary includes a lot of archival footage, such as news reports, interviews that Steve did, and grainy-looking video recordings that were taken at the camps.

Although there is a variety of people interviewed for the documentary, what’s missing is more investigation into the sexual abuse allegations that aren’t mentioned until the last 20 minutes of the movie. Amber says she was sexually abused by a “chief of the village” during her time at Pacific Coast Academy, but the documentary doesn’t mention if the filmmakers followed up on this allegation to try to find this accused abuser to get his side of the story.

And there’s another sexual abuse allegation against someone else that isn’t too surprising, but this allegation is shown so late in the film, it seems like it was mainly put there for shock purposes. The documentary does not give any indication if this allegation is isolated or possibly the tip of the iceberg. If the allegation against this person is true, it’s highly likely that there are many more victims of the same type of sexual abuse, but the “Hell Camp” filmmakers didn’t seem to want to do more investigating.

Even with some noticeable flaws, “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” is a searing look at this unsettling fact: Even when so many people speak their truths about being abused, there are still others who deny or excuse the abuse. This documentary is also a wake-up call about why these types of programs are thriving in a society that should have better ways of dealing with child delinquency. Of course, there are no easy answers, but it should be easy to know when discipline crosses the line into unacceptable and illegal abuse.

Netflix premiered “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” on December 27, 2023.

Review: ‘Holiday in the Vineyards,’ starring Josh Swickard, Sol Rodríguez, Eileen Davidson, Omar Gooding, Carly Jibson, Julian Rangel and Carlos Solórzano

December 25, 2023

by Carla Hay

Josh Swickard and Sol Rodríguez in “Holiday in the Vineyards” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Holiday in the Vineyards”

Directed by Alex Ranarivelo

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the comedy film “Holiday in the Vineyards” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, Latino and African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An irresponsible playboy goes undercover to get confidential business information for his wine mogul mother, but he falls for the woman whom he has deceived to get this information.

Culture Audience: “Holiday in the Vineyards” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching inoffensive and undemanding romantic comedies.

Omar Gooding in “Holiday in the Vineyards” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Holiday in the Vineyards” is pleasant and predictable, but not in a way that’s cloying or irritating. Unlike many romantic comedies of its kind, everything in the story is believable. Some parts are dull and uneven, but the movie is watchable overall. It’s the type of film where most viewers will know how the movie ends before the movie begins, but the movie’s characters will keep viewers interested.

Directed by Alex Ranarivelo, “Holiday in the Vineyards” is the cinematic equivalent of a low-priced romance novel that is an easy way to pass the time. “Holiday in the Vineyards” (written by Cecilia Franco and David Zanardi) has an easygoing screenplay that follows a familiar formula of an irresponsible man who might be redeemed by the love of a good woman. It’s also one of those romantic comedies that involves someone telling a big lie to potential love interest, so there romance could be ruined if the deceived person finds out about the lie.

“Holiday in the Vineyards” (formerly titled “A Wine Country Christmas”) begins by showing hard-partying playboy Carter Baldwyn (played by Josh Swickard) waking up on a golf course, after being passed out drunk. Carter is very hung over and is running late for a lunch meeting with his widowed mother Margo Baldwyn (played by Eileen Davidson), who is very bossy and judgmental. She is the owner of the California-based family business called Baldwyn Wines, which is a financially successful company that sells low-quality wine.

Margo has become accustomed to Carter being flaky, but she’s losing her patience with him. Margo’s father-in-law George Baldwyn (who is deceased) founded Baldwyn Wines. She wants to retire in the near future but is determined to keep the business in the family. And so, Margo expects Carter (who is an only child) to eventually take over the company.

However, Margo has serious doubts that Carter is capable of being the leader of anything. He has a history of being flaky and selfish. He was engaged to a woman named Emma Dixon (played by Annika Noelle), who had Margo’s approval. However, Carter called off the wedding and callously told Emma by text that he decided to break up with her.

While Margo waits for Carter to show up for the lunch meeting, Margo is rude to a waiter who serves her some Baldwin win at this lunch meeting. She spits out the wine and barks at the waiter: “We sell this wine! We don’t drink it!” She then orders the waiter to serve her the high-quality wine that she thinks she deserves.

During the meeting between Margo and Carter, she tells him that she wants to go to the rural town of Los Santos, where she wants to buy a property in foreclosure called Huckabee Vineyard Estate. Margo has heard that there’s a rival company that might be bidding on ths property. Carter has been given the task of going undercover at Los Santos to try to find out any insider information to help Margo have the upper hand in closing this deal.

Margo orders Carter to “blend in” when he’s in Los Santos. And that means Carter can’t call attention to himself as the spoiled and wealthy heir of Baldwyn Wines. Through a series of circumstances, Carter makes an impromptu decision to pretend that he’s a carpenter. It’s a lie that he tells to several people in Los Santos, including the main target of his undercover investigation: Valentina Espinoza (played by Sol Rodríguez), the real-estate agent that is representing Huckabee Vineyard Estate in the sale.

Valentina is a lonely and grieving young widow, whose husband Chris died of cancer. The movie doesn’t say how long he’s been dead, but it appears to be less than two years. Valentina and Chris’ two sons are Fernando (played by Julian Rangel ), who’s about 10 or 11 years old, and Santiago, nicknamed Santi (played by Carlos Solórzano), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Valentina gets help from her best friend Cindy (played by Carly Jibson), who is a nurse, in taking care of the children.

It just so happens that Valentina has a guest house that is dire need of a cleanup and renovation. Chris and Valentina have their “meet cute” moment (he crashes a private tour that she’s giving of Huckabee Vineyard Estate), he eagerly accepts Valentina’s offer for him to stay in the guest house. His glee quickly turns to dismay when Valentina says he can stay there for free on one condition: He has to renovate the guest house with supplies, which she says shouldn’t be a problem for Chris because he told her that he’s a carpenter.

Valentina says she will pay for all of the supplies and sends Chris goes to a local store called Walker Hardware. Mo Walker (played by Omar Gooding), the store’s friendly and helpful owner, quickly figures out that Chris has lied to Valentina about being a carpenter. Omar thinks that Chris told this lie because Chris wants to date Valentina. Chris denies that he hs a romantic interest in Valentina, but we all know where this story is going. The movie shows as soon as Carter arrives in Los Santos that the town is having an upcoming event on December 23 called the Holiday Garagiste and Artisanal Wine Festival.

“Holiday in the Vineyards” has a lot of the expected occurrences in a “bad boy/good girl” romance formula, where a “bad boy” has to do some soul-searching about his part harmful actions, in order become a better person who’s “worthy” of the love of the “good girl.” Carter goes from someone who’s a commitment-phobic bachelor who can’t picture himself spending too much time taking care of kids to someone who is surprised at how good he is with Valentina’s children and how much he likes the small-town life of Los Santos.

Meanwhile, Valentina also has to rethink how much her grief is holding her back from trying to find happiness and romantic love again. “Holiday in the Vineyards” realistically shows the hesitancy of a widowed person who is afraid and reluctant to get back into the dating scenes. As attractive and accomplished as Valentina is, she not immune from insecurities and sadness. Rodríguez’s portrayal of Valentina is some of the best acting in the movie.

The “sidekick” characters of Cindy and Mo bring most of the movie’s comedy in ways that are often stereotypical, with some of their jokes landing better than other jokes. Cindy is a jokester and a flirtatious bachelorette who is looking for love. And you can almost do a countdown to the scene where Cindy meets Mo, who is also single, and predict how she’s going to react to him.

Mo is an amateur winemaker who makes wine out of his garage, but his wine needs a lot of improvement, to put it nicely. A running joke in the movie is that Mo often asks Carter for Carter’s opinion on Mo’s wine. Every time Carter drinks Mo’s wine, Carter gags and/or spits out the wine.

“Holiday in the Vineyards” doesn’t have any big surprises. But thankfully, there are no over-the-top and ridiculous scenes of people declaring they’ve fallen in love with each other and want to spend the rest of their lives with a love interest whom they’ve known for less than a week. Any transformation that Carter might go through is well-earned and doesn’t looked forced. The romance in the story, just like this movie, is sweet and has enough charm to keep most viewers interested.

Netflix premiered “Holiday in the Vineyards” on December 13, 2023.

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