Comedy Tragedy Marriage

The Coen Brothers wrote and directed this modern Western thriller from a book by Cormac McCarthy. It is poetry both in the writing and the cinematography and is available to stream on HBOMax.

Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb were famous from their teenage years on, blending harmonies born of their brotherly bond and songwriting that spoke of love and longing. From the ups and downs of their musical careers to the struggles of maintaining their relationship in the glare of the spotlight, “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” follows the Brothers Gibb through the good times and th...

Cultures clash and vital signs crash in the based-on-a-true-story romantic comedy “The Big Sick,’ starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter and Ray Romano.

The covert war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, funded largely by one Texas congressman, is the subject of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” starring Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts.

After a medical hiatus, Maude and Stan are back with a cautionary tale about their COVID-19 experience, they also look back at what was supposed to be the topic of their last pre-Christmas episode, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” along with other things they watched over the last four weeks. It’s good to be back.

Dolly Parton plays the guardian angel to a woman looking to leave painful memories and the small town of her youth behind in the Netflix original film “Christmas on the Square.”

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been translated to the screen more than two dozen times. We watched two versions, one from 1984 starring George C. Scott and a Disney animated feature with Jim Carrey voicing Scrooge. Both stick closely to Dickens novella, but there are differences that make one much better than the other.

Maude kicks off the holiday season with a classic, 1954’s “White Christmas,” starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

Mix a snotty teenager, a glammed out Goblin King, a stolen baby and a bunch of life size Muppets, and what do you get? “Labyrinth,” a 1986 musical fantasy starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.

Maude’s choice this week is “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” a documentary about the meteoric rise and tragically short life of the great Janis Joplin.

The Day of the Dead doesn’t seem like a good topic for a kids movie, but the wizards at Disney/Pixar find a way in their 2017 release “Coco.”

When a tragedy brings a family together, they mix as well as oil and water...or gasoline vapors and a match. We watched “August: Osage County” starring Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Evan McGregor and many more.

Adolescence is hard enough without also being possessed by a demon. We conclude our Halloween film fest with the 1973 classic “The Exorcist.”

Maude’s selection checks another one off the must-see list as we watched “Rosemary’s Baby.”

What do three gleefully wicked witches, a talking immortal black cat and three precocious kids have in common? Disney’s 1993 film “Hocus Pocus,” that’s what!

A couple takes a road trip to the backwoods town where they grew up, met and fell in love in “Sugar Hill,” one of Dolly Parton’s “Heartstrings” collection.

The imaginative video game-themed graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim received an equally imaginative big screen treatment in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” directed by Edgar Wright.

The passing of Supreme Court associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made Maude want to learn more about the history-making lawyer and jurist, leading us to the documentary “RBG,” available to stream on Hulu.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play two damaged people that quickly fall in love but seek to erase their memories of each other in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

A cast of British acting and comedy greats (Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton and more) plus comedienne Rita Rudner (who co-wrote the script) come together in an English manor to celebrate the New Year, air their dirty laundry and disclose closely held secrets in “Peter’s Friends.”

Growing up isn’t easy at the best of times. Growing up with a single mom, in war torn WWII Germany, with Adolf Hitler as your imaginary friend and a Jewish refugee hiding in your walls makes puberty a minefield. We discuss all that and more as we break down Jojo Rabbit.

Maude and Stan tackle the devastating yet beautiful “Schindler’s List” starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes and more.

Superman is Stan’s favorite superhero and he introduces Maude to 2013’s “Man of Steel” starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon and more.

Maude’s selection this week won Eddie Redmayne an Oscar for his performance as the brilliant and complicated theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.”

Dreams within dreams can be a beautiful and dangerous place in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.” Do Maude and Stan agree or does this episode turn into a nightmare?