Manuel Betancourt

Los Angeles, Lower Saxony

Critic, Writer and Editor at Freelance

Writer/critic for hire 📚 Hello Stranger (OUT NOW!) 📚 The Male Gazed (2023) 📚 Judy at Carnegie Hall (2020) 🏰 Writer on @thecardboardk Rep @MichaelBourret

Featured in: Favicon

imdb.com

medium.com Favicon

msn.com

nytimes.com Favicon

yahoo.com (+11) Favicon

huffpost.com Favicon

aol.com

buzzfeed.com Favicon

latimes.com Favicon

netflix.com + 91 more

Articles

'Sally' explains why a trailblazing astronaut chose to stay in the closet

1 week ago | latimes.com | Manuel Betancourt

The name Sally Ride carries with it the hushed whispers of greatness. As the first American woman to go into space in 1983, Ride became an icon. Young girls who saw the famed astronaut on the cover of Newsweek, People and even Ms. Magazine witnessed a world of possibilities open up for them. That was the case for filmmaker Cristina Costantini. Her documentary “Sally,” which premiered at Sundance, is an ode to her childhood hero.
'Overcompensating,' 'Big Mouth' and 4 other series to watch during Pride Month

1 week ago | latimes.com | Manuel Betancourt

1 Whether a protest or a parade — and these days, they more likely need to be both — Pride Month has long served as a time to highlight the sheer expansiveness of the LGBTQ+ community. And while many of us celebrate queer folks year-round, it’s become customary for June to be the month when streamers and networks alike premiere shows that reflect and speak to this most fabulous community.
'Overcompensating,' 'Big Mouth' and 4 other series to watch during Pride Month

1 week ago | aol.com | Manuel Betancourt

Whether a protest or a parade — and these days, they more likely need to be both — Pride Month has long served as a time to highlight the sheer expansiveness of the LGBTQ+ community. And while many of us celebrate queer folks year-round, it’s become customary for June to be the month when streamers and networks alike premiere shows that reflect and speak to this most fabulous community.
'Sally' explains why a trailblazing astronaut chose to stay in the closet

1 week ago | currently.att.yahoo.com | Manuel Betancourt

NASA astronaut Sally Ride (1951 - 2012) in the interior of the Challenger space shuttle during the STS-41-G mission, October 1984. In 1983 she became the first American woman in space on the STS-7 mission. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)The name Sally Ride carries with it the hushed whispers of greatness. As the first American woman to go into space in 1983, Ride became an icon.
With federal employees under 'grievous' threat, CIA office drama 'The Agency' pushes back

2 weeks ago | latimes.com | Manuel Betancourt

The spy is the most devoted of employees. His or her line of work demands utter commitment, if not active contempt for the very concept of a “personal life.” Cunningly, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth’s “The Agency” — a remake of the French series “Le Bureau des Légendes”— pushes its central character to question that arrangement. Michael Fassbender stars as Martian, a CIA spy who’s recalled to London after years of living deep undercover in Ethiopia.
With federal employees under 'grievous' threat, CIA office drama 'The Agency' pushes back

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Manuel Betancourt

Richard Gere, left, Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright of "The Agency." (Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)The spy is the most devoted of employees. His or her line of work demands utter commitment, if not active contempt for the very concept of a “personal life.” Cunningly, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth’s “The Agency” — a remake of the French series “Le Bureau des Légendes”— pushes its central character to question that arrangement.
Inside Allee Willis' fabulously kitsch party house that inspired a pop-up book

2 weeks ago | latimes.com | Manuel Betancourt

Famed songwriter Allee Willis, who died in 2019, was known for her talent, playfulness and kitschy fever dream of a home. Now her home, dubbed Willis Wonderland, has been reimagined as a pop-up book so anyone can see inside. Her whimsical home decor currently remains, but what may happen next to Willis Wonderland is up in the air. When you walk into Willis Wonderland, your eye doesn’t know where to land.
Whodunit The Better Sister slathers on too many subplots

1 month ago | avclub.com | Manuel Betancourt

As a title, The Better Sister has a nice ring to it, especially as the show never commits to telling us which is the superior sib here. Is it Chloe (Jessica Biel), a well-coiffed New Yorker who works in publishing and lives a life as beautifully put together as her ensembles with her lawyer husband and teenage son? Or might it be Nicky (Elizabeth Banks), a frazzled woman still working through her sobriety and aching to have a closer bond with her estranged son? The question seems rhetorical.
Sirens feels like a much messier Big Little Lies

1 month ago | avclub.com | Manuel Betancourt

Skip to the content The premise of Netflix’s latest limited series, Sirens, rests on a truth universally acknowledged: There are few people as beguiling as Julianne Moore. The Oscar-winning actor has long been able to create intriguing women whose warmth can be intoxicating even if— and sometimes precisely because—it’s quite fraught and fragile.
In 'Motorheads,' Michael Cimino taps into his inner speedster

1 month ago | latimes.com | Manuel Betancourt

From the moment Michael Cimino heard about “Motorheads,” a new coming-of-age drama set in a small town against the backdrop of street racing, he knew he had to be a part of it. The young actor, best known as the lead in Hulu’s “Love, Victor,” had long been looking for something just like it. “Literally, since I first signed with CAA [Creative Artists Agency],” Cimino shares excitedly over Zoom.