'Alex Rider': TV Review

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIn “Alex Wheatle,” the fourth of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe films, we meet a young man who seems, quite literally, to have come from nothing. Alex (Sheyi Cole), born to Jamaican parents in 1963, was abandoned by his mother, and his father gave him over to the British social-services bureaucracy — which means that he grows up, in essence, as a Dickensian orphan.

Early in Steve McQueen's Alex Wheatle, the young protagonist whose name gives the film its title prompts derision from a barber shop full of Londoners of West Indian descent by revealing that he doesn't consider himself African. "I might be Black, but I'm from Surrey," says the young Brit abandoned by his Jamaican parents, who has grown up in the loveless Social Services foster-care system.

One of 2020’s few joys has been Steve McQueen’s Amazon anthology “Small Axe,” a series telling, in some instances for the first time, the stories of the Black Brits who faced oppression during the ’60s and ’70s. While “Mangrove” touted empowerment through self-representation, “Lovers Rock” through music, and “Red, White and Blue” through reform from within, “Alex Wheatle” calls for literature as a gateway to freedom.

Watch Video: 'Small Axe' Trailer: John Boyega, Letitia Wright Tackle London Racism in Anthology SeriesWhen Alex arrives in Brixton, he’s a fish out of water in the neighborhood; neighbor Dennis (Jonathan Jules, “Fighting With My Family”) takes it upon himself to fix Alex’s wardrobe, hair and inability to speak the Jamaican dialect. “I’m not African,” Alex tells the barber who has referred to him as such.

With the arrival of Alex Wheatle, the fourth of five installments that make up Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s adamant and penetrating series of roughly hourlong dramas centering on the Black immigrant community experience in post-World War II Britain, the emerging core concern is the hypocrisy involved in the nation laying out the welcome mat to newcomers in the first place while denying opportunity once they’ve arrived.

Goldie Hawn is such a glamorous grandmother!The 74-year-old was pictured with oldest grandson Ryder Robinson on daughter Kate Hudson's Instagram account recently, and fans couldn't believe just how much the pair looked alike.MORE: Goldie Hawn divides fans with rare photo of granddaughter RioThe photo, which was captioned: "The one that made Mama a Gogo," saw the pair sitting relaxing in the garden at home in LA. VIDEO: Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's love storyGoldie looked stylish dressed in a

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers officially blocked a decades-long struggle to blast open the controversial Pebble Mine Wednesday, located near the world’s largest natural salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Late Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek was left off the nominees list for the 2021 Grammy Awards, despite his memoir Alex Trebek–The Answer Is…receiving a nod for the ceremony’s Best Spoken World Album award. Instead of Trebek, who died of pancreatic cancer on Nov. 8, Ken Jennings received the nomination for Trebek’s memoir.

Mark David Rich and famous folk are notorious for their itchy real estate feet, buying and selling multimillion-dollar homes with the same ease and alacrity as mere financial mortals might, say, buy a new pair of shoes or change out the baking soda box in the fridge. One exception, at least in San Francisco, is Hollywood veteran Winona Ryder, who’s owned the same home in the city’s affluent Cow Hollow neighborhood for 25 years.

Alaskans approved an election reform measure earlier this month that will make the state just the second in the U.S. to adopt ranked-choice voting.  The ballot measure narrowly passed with 50.49% voting in favor of it, Alaska's Division of Elections announced Tuesday.  Instead of just picking one candidate, ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so on.

Near the start of Alex Gibney’s documentary “Crazy, Not Insane,” his subject asks the kind of essential question that feels so unanswerable that it is brought up not nearly as often as it should be. Thinking about the nature of evil and recalling her childhood interest in the Nuremberg Trials, she asks very plainly, “How come I don’t kill?” Everyone gets angry.

Salma Hayek served up a seriously sexy throwback Thursday photo. In the pic, the 54-year-old actress is laughing while wearing a black-sequenced top.

 Salma Hayek  can easily be named the queen of throwback photos at this point. The Mexican actress is either posting a throwback photo from the ‘90s, photos from when she was pregnant with her daughter, or an old H&M campaign on her Instagram.

Sen. Marco Rubio on Wednesday was the first major outside voice to campaign during the Georgia Senate runoffs on behalf of Republican Sens.

Fifty seats down, one more to go. Senate Republicans Wednesday secured their 50th seat in the quest to hang onto the majority with a win in Alaska by incumbent Sen.