Category: Reviews
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Now You See Me: Illusion and Magic
I’ve always been a interested in stage magic. Every since I saw my first bit of slight of hand when I was a kid, I wanted to know more about it. That made me a wee bit annoying for, say, local magicians playing birthday parties and community events. Especially once I figured out how some…
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Adventureland – Quirky and Awkward as Expected
Adventureland has been on my list to see since it came out. It always seemed exactly like the kind of movie I love and, well, it is. It’s the kind of film I relate to probably a bit more than I should. It’s not a screwball comedy or, really, even a standard rom-com. It doesn’t quite…
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The Truman Show: Prescient and Hopeful
When The Truman Show came out in 1998, “reality TV” as we know it today was just barely a thing. MTV had aired the first season of The Real World in 1992, the original Dutch version of Big Brother hit the airwaves in 1997. The “king” of all reality shows, Survivor, wouldn’t air until two years later, in 2000. In…
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Hair: You Know Some of the Songs and None of the Plot
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a fan of the classic American Musical. That cuts off around the mid-60s, a little after West Side Story. Anything after that I likely haven’t had a lot of exposure to (which is one of the oversights I’m trying to fix lately). The stage version of Hair…
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Transformers: The Movie – Accidental Impact
Two of the main cartoons, comic book series, and toy lines of my childhood were G.I. Joe and Transformers. I started the G.I. Joe comic with issue #6 and Transformers with “Issue 1 of a 4-issue limited series” (which then ran for 80 issues). When Transformers: The Movie hit screens in 1986, I was excited. I saw it and I loved…
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Wet Hot American Summer: Ridiculous in all the Right Ways
I missed catching Wet, Hot, American Summer when it first came out back in 2001. It wasn’t until 2015, when Netflix released the “prequel” series, that I finally got around to watching it. That time delay may have made it even funnier than it would have been 14 years earlier. The Plot The film follows the…
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Three down, don’t know how many to go…
Just watched three of the new season pilots from ABC that are up on Hulu (The Trophy Wife, The Goldbergs, and Back in the Game). The good news is, that’s an hour and a half a week of new shows I won’t have to worry about watching ever again. Now, don’t get me wrong. None…
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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
This wasn’t one of the movies I’d really planned on seeing in theaters, let alone on it’s opening weekend. But an old friend was in town and, after dinner, we decided to hit up a movie. Of everything that was playing that neither of us had seen, we chose Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, kind of…
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Winter Season 2011-2012: New Shows
Once upon a time, there were only two seasons on TV: Fall and Summer. Now, things being what they are, we should just be honest and admit that there are four. Forget this “mid-season premiere” fallacy. If we’re luck, a season these days is 12 episodes. Shows that do 20+ episodes a year are, effectively,…
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Fall Season 2011: More Reviews
Okay, we’re now a few weeks into the new season and everything I planned on watching has premiered. Some of it has been very good, some of it has been very bad, and some of it is already gone. Here’s a look at what wasn’t covered last time. How to be a Gentleman (CBS –…
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The 2011 Fall Season: New Shows
Since I’ve been quite remiss in reviewing things anywhere outside of Twitter and in person lately (like, for the past few seasons), I thought I’d round up some quick thoughts on what I’ve seen of the new 2011 Fall Season of shows so far. The beginning of the season is always a busy time for…
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Soul Fire Rising
The more one bounces around online, the more little interesting things one comes across. This bit of new online series came my way via Kelly Stables Twitter account, most recently recognizable as part of the cast of Romantically Challenged, the very hastily (and unfortunately) canceled sitcom headlined by Alyssa Milano. Stables is a producer on…