Alabama Liberal
Blue in a Red State
Movie Review: “Selma,” All Posturing Aside, Is it Good?
3 days ago
Personal Note: I have been to Selma, Alabama exactly once for a—strangely enough—scholar’s bowl tournament and it’s a place that is nearly as “unchanged by time” as Cuba. Maybe it was just the part I saw, but most of the buildings looked like they hadn’t changed much since MLK visited, and one guy More >
Movie Review: Inherent Vice
3 days ago
For almost anyone who sees it, this movie is going to be love it or hate it. And like most things that are “love it or hate it,” I felt strangely neutral to it. It’s set in 1970, and is really about the exact moment the freewheeling 60’s began to morph into the scuzzy, Nixonian paranoia of the More >
Movie Review: Blackhat
3 days ago
So…this isn’t a very good movie, but it’s not 31% on Rotten Tomatoes bad either. It’s the worst film of the usually-excellent director Michael Mann’s that I’ve actually seen, but it turns out that even the worst film from Michael Mann is better than most.
What Works: It’s no surprise that a More >
Movie Review: Taken 3
3 days ago
This movie sucks. I really don’t think hardcore action fans are going to go bananas for this watered-down, PG-13 action. And Liam Neeson fans (myself included) are going to be left wondering when (if ever) the great-actor version of Liam Neeson is coming back.
What Works: [Crickets]
What Doesn’t: More >
Movie Review: A Most Violent Year
1 week ago
A solid film, but a somewhat misleading title as there’s not much actual violence in it. I mention that because I think the wrong type of person might go see this expecting a Tarantino-style bloodbath but it’s actually a much quieter and moodier crime film that is just barely a crime film at all. More >
TV Reviews: “Broad City” and “Man Seeking Woman”
1 week ago
by Alabama Liberal
in TV Reviews
Two millennial-courting comedies that just might become the next big cult hits…
Broad City…In a perfect world, this would receive the attention that “Girls” does as it may actually be a technically “better” exploration of Brooklyn female friendship, and is certainly a lot funnier. The new season More >
Movie Review: Why “The Interview” is Actually Underrated
3 weeks ago
By now, the infamous “The Interview” is actually underrated. All the controversy and hype—none of it at the level anyone involved with the film ever thought it would be—has actually caused a backlash against the movie. Critics aren’t really getting behind it like they should, and now conservatives More >
TV Reviews: “Galavant” and “The Good Wife”
3 weeks ago
by Alabama Liberal
in TV Reviews
After a couple of weeks where scripted television more or less took a vacation—when the only new episodes of TV available are “Mulaney” and some On-Demand-only episodes of the cancelled “Selfie,” you know things are rough—it seemed to come back last night as CBS and ABC decided to be TV networks More >
ALL 2014 Movies I’ve Seen From the Worst to the Best…All 223 of Them
4 weeks ago
The bottom-line is that this was not a great year for movies, so it may also have been the wrong year to watch over 200 of them. It felt like last year’s crop was stronger in general, but I’d still highly recommend anything on this list that got a B+ or better, and my top twenty in particular More >
The Ten BEST TV Characters of the Year
4 weeks ago
I decided to separate this year’s list of the ten best characters into “dead” or “alive” categories since it seemed like so many great characters were killed off this year. Also worth noting is that only one character from last year’s list made this year’s list, and if it wasn’t easy to fill all More >
Entertainment Editorial: The Ten WORST TV Characters of the Year
4 weeks ago
Don’t worry, the ten best will follow very shortly, but I figured I’d start with a list of the worst. I like bad news first, and besides, you can’t appreciate the good if you don’t show how wrong things can go…
Dishonorable Mention: The cast of “Utopia” was supposed to be building a new society and More >
The FINAL Movie Review of the Year: The Terrific “Life Itself”
4 weeks ago
Note: This is the last movie review of 2014, but not article. Come back in a few hours for lists of the Worst TV Characters of the Year and Best TV Characters of the Year. And come back New Year’s Day for a run-down of the 200-plus movies I’ve seen this year, everything from the bottom of the More >
Movie Review: Wild
4 weeks ago
I’m not really a Reese Witherspoon fan, but if she keeps making movies like “Wild,” I might become one. For me, this is her best performance since 1999’s “Election,” and it’s the first film since then where I felt like she’s not holding back or guarding something about herself. Only time will tell More >
Hour 25 Review: The Trip to Italy
4 weeks ago
And just because the faithful Alabama Liberal readers (all 5 of them) have been very loyal in something of an off-year, I’ll throw in a bonus 25th hour review…
You either enjoyed the first “The Trip” movie or you didn’t, and that’ll probably be a decent indication of whether you’ll go for this More >
Hour 24 Review: The Machine
4 weeks ago
There’s a cold war going on and the competition mostly revolves around the West and China trying to outdo each other with more and more advanced robots. Then, naturally, they come up with a sexy cyborg—it’s just coincidental that she’s hot—that achieves artificial intelligence. It’s all hum-drum More >
