Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal at the Philadelphia Film Festival Springfest preview screening of “Blindspotting.” Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal Shining a Light on Our Blindspots by Jay S. Jacobs For Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, it all goes back to Oakland. That was where they grew up, where they first met as kids and became life-long friends. Now, all these years later, long after both of them have moved away, Oakland has become the site, the subject and a virtual character

AQUARIUS — Season: 1 — Pictured: Gethin Anthony as Manson — (Photo by: Jim Fiscus/NBC) Gethin Anthony Channels a Legendary Mad Man in Aquarius by Jay S. Jacobs It takes a certain amount of fearlessness to portray one of the great sociopaths of the past century.  Charles Manson, a magnetic cult leader, instructed his followers to commit a series of brutal murders which included actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Fulger and supermarket executive Leno LaBianca. Coming o

Jason Lee in Memphis Beat Jason Lee Walking in Memphis by Jay S. Jacobs After a few years of playing the title character in the popular sitcom My Name Is Earl and starring in such kid-friendly comedies as Alvin and the Chipmunks and Underdog, Jason Lee is taking a totally different tack for his return to series television. Memphis Beat is a moody and slightly downbeat, yet rather funny in its own way, police procedural about the southern musical mecca. Lee plays Dwight, a sma

Russell Crowe, director Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington making American Gangster Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe Oppose Each Other in American Gangster by Brad Balfour What a pairing. Actors Denzel Washington (Training Day) and Russell Crowe (Gladiator) play two opposing forces in the struggle between an upwardly mobile black guy and upwardly mobile, distinctly Jewish guy during the ’70s in American Gangster. The black man starts out young, poor, and country-born and b

The Job – The Complete Series The Job The Complete Series (2001-2002) (Shout! Factory-2005) It is a mystery why Denis Leary has never become huge. He’s one of the funniest guys in show business, and yet none of his films or TV ventures seems to catch on. He is a brilliant stand-up comedian (just track down his old CD No Cure for Cancer) who has tended to stand out in a series of not very good movies. He never captured the potential he showed in his debut starring film, The Re

Dragnet 1967 Dragnet 1967 Season 1 (1967-1968) (Universal-2005) It’s easy to be hard on Dragnet 1967, with its obvious squareness, its sexlessness, its lack of (intentional) humor and its blatant modesty. However, the only real weak link in its chain is its obsessive need to deliver an easy, uninspiring payoff. Each cop-n-criminal tale is a success story – no cold cases here. There are never any surprises, which is – unsurprisingly – exactly what its ultra-conservative audien