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    Downton Abbey's Final Season

    Houstonians get a sneak peek at season opener of Downton Abbey — and they Lovett

    Clifford Pugh
    Dec 16, 2015 | 4:46 pm

    Even though Downton Abbey doesn't premiere in Houston (and the rest of the U.S.) until January 3, fans of the hit PBS series got a sneak look at the first episode of the final season. Houston Public Media held four standing-room-only screenings over the weekend — two in Houston in the Cristal Palace Spiegeltent at Bayou Bend Collections and Gardens and two in The Woodlands at Cinemark at Market Street — for more than 500 fans.

    And on Tuesday night, they taped the first episode of Manor of Speaking, the locally-produced show that airs immediately after Downton on Houston Public Media TV 8, dissecting every plot twist of that evening's episode, with a surprise "superfan" — acclaimed singer Lyle Lovett. The Spring native loves Downton so much that he asked if he could appear on the episode that will be broadcast on January 3.

    A party for the show's supporters at the HPM studios on the University of Houston campus followed. Many dressed for the occasion in boas, cloche hats, flapper dresses, bowlers, feathered headbands and other attire of the roaring '20s, the period when the final season is set. Attendees had each made a special financial donation to HPM in order to take part in the festivities.

    Fans at the screenings were encouraged to dress for the occasion in a “Dress for Downton” costume contest to win guest passes to an upcoming taping of Manor of Speaking. Host Ernie Manouse and Manor of Speaking panelists Helen Mann and St.John Flynn participated in a special Q&A session with the audience at each screening. (The show now airs on more than 138 PBS stations.)

    Fans were sworn to secrecy about what transpires in the premiere episode, but suffice it to say that there are some memorable one-liners from Maggie Smith, who plays the sharp-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham, and some blushing plot twists involving housekeeper Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Margaret Logan) and butler Mr. Carson (Jim Carter).

    The episode "wrapped up all the lingering story lines but set up where it's going," Lovett told the audience, who no doubt are saddened to see Downton come to an end but are eagerly looking forward to the final season.

    Our favorite tweet from the opening episode of this season's Manor of Speaking: "Downton Abbey should have been called Game of Scones."

    Christina Wohaldo and Georgianna Siwek.

    Cristina Wohadlo and Georgianna Siwek at Downton Abbey Manor of Speaking sneak preview
      
    Photo by Francisco Montes
    Christina Wohaldo and Georgianna Siwek.
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    Movie Review

    Realism and strong performances power new war drama Warfare

    Alex Bentley
    Apr 11, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    Cast of Warfare
    Photo courtesy of A24
    Cast of Warfare

    At this point in movie history, there are precious few ways to make a war film feel original. Every major American war, including the most recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been covered, and the “war is hell” idea has been featured in too many films to count. So for a film like the new Warfare to stand out, it needs to do something that other war films have not.

    To say that it accomplishes that goal is an understatement. Set in Iraq in 2006, it follows a platoon of soldiers tasked with helping to gain control of the city of Ramadi, a hotbed of activity in the war at that time. But this is not a story of good triumphing over evil, nor one that tries to examine exactly what the U.S. military was trying to accomplish in the war. Instead, it’s just a story of a group of young men trying to do the job they’re asked to do, and what happens to them during that mission.

    It presents as fact, with no judgment either way, that one squad of the platoon overtakes the home of two Iraqi families as part of the mission. An ensuing firefight pins the soldiers down with almost no way to escape, and subsequent rescue attempts by other squads result in multiple casualties. The bulk of the film focuses on how the shell-shocked and injured soldiers react to the situation in which they find themselves.

    Written and directed by Alex Garland (Civil War) and Ray Mendoza, the film is based on the memories of Mendoza and his fellow soldiers of this exact situation they experienced. As such, the film does not attempt to add extra drama or even emphasize one character over another. In fact, the first 30-40 minutes of the film are relatively boring, as the squad relays information about their position to other, unseen people.

    The men in the platoon are not exactly interchangeable with each other, but the way the film is structured, they’re essentially equals. It’s easy to tell who the leaders are, but those giving orders are not treated as more important to the film than those carrying them out. This is especially true when things go to hell, as each person goes from trying to fight to trying to survive, with their training coming into play in different ways.

    The situation depicted in the film is somewhat mundane - it’s not some big battle or a turning point in the war - but the intensity with which Garland and Mendoza stage it makes it enormously impactful. They put the audience right in the thick of the carnage, and the horrific injuries inflicted on some of the men, as well as the seemingly never-ending screams of pain emanating from them, can be difficult to take.

    The cast features a few actors who are starting to make names for themselves (Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Noah Centineo, Charles Melton Michael Gandolfini), others who’ve had smaller impacts (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, Evan Holtzman), and plenty of others who have yet to get their big breaks. Each of them does their job extremely well, which in this case means that they complement each other’s performances, with none of them overshadowing the others.

    Warfare is not an overtly political film, and yet the politics of war are inextricable from the story it tells. Neither anti-war nor pro-war, it simply lays out the facts of one individual mission in a larger conflict, and each viewer will likely take away something different from the experience of watching it.

    ---

    Warfare is now playing in theaters.

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