After reviewing Amazon’s Pilot Season and upcoming shows, why not take a look back at several series they’ve had recently…[And a handful more tomorrow too]… Sneaky Pete…This con artist-set series has already been renewed for a second season, but I found it to be a mixed-bag overall. There are certainly great things to recommend like…
Category: Entertainment Editorial
Amazon’s Upcoming Series: The Tick, I Love Dick, Last Tycoon, and Jean Claude Van Johnson
While I reviewed this current crop of Amazon’s pilots yesterday, it might be time to take a look at the series they greenlit from last year’s pilot season… The Tick…A dedicated group will love this update of “The Tick” but I wasn’t encouraged by the pilot. The lead character/actor (Griffin Newman playing an accountant with…
Odds on Which Amazon Prime Pilot Season Series Will Get Picked Up
Amazon Prime’s pilot seasons—in which viewers watch a handful or so of TV pilots and pick which ones they want to see made into series—started out revolutionary and often invoked the praise “Finally! Why don’t more networks do this?” Well, partly because cable series and our bingeable culture (Amazon itself releases all episodes of its…
“Get Out” IS Racist, but Towards Interracial Couples
The buzz and controversy of “Get Out” is deafening, but the few–too few–criticisms the movie appears to be getting is that it’s anti-white or racist towards white people. I don’t really believe that, and there’s little in this movie that hasn’t been in “Machete” or Blaxploitation films, but the film is anti-interracial couples and in that way…
Oscar Predictions: Who Will Be Nominated…AND Win
Note: I can usually predict about 4 out of 5 nominees and 2/3rds of winners, for whatever that’s worth in your Oscar betting pool. The rankings are how sure I am they’ll be nominated (so the 4th or 5th placers may very well not make the cut) and the top choice is who I think will…
The Reason White Racists Love FX’s “Atlanta”
Opening Defense: I know the pushback I’ll most likely receive is “but wait–black people love ‘Atlanta’ too.” Sure, but this year saw a variety of black-starring and created TV shows from “Loosely Exactly Nicole” to “Insecure” to “Luke Cage” to “Queen Sugar” and none of them received the universal adoration from white critics that “Atlanta” did….
The 10 Best TV Shows of 2016
You’ve seen the Best (and Worst) Characters, and the Best Scenes or Episodes, but still, there can be only one true list of the year’s 10 Best TV Shows… Honorable Mention: “Real Time with Bill Maher” is about to become the most important voice for “The Resistance.” Let’s quit kidding ourselves that Trumpers will ever listen to…
The Best TV Scenes or Episodes of 2016
Note: This is a combination of TV episodes, scenes, moments, shots, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to be confused with “The Best TV series of 2016” which ranks an entire season, and will be posted shortly… Honorable Mention: “The Good Wife” Iowa episode…”The Good Wife” gave us a lot of good…
The BEST TV Characters of 2016
People Vs. OJ…Veep…Westworld…The Night Of… Best Self: Campbell Scott as himself in “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll”…Having a celebrity play themselves rarely leads to anything other than smiles or a soft chuckle, but “Sex” gave Scott his most interesting role since “Roger Dodger,” as a manipulative, hilarious genius trying to stage a Hamilton-rip-off. He has only…
The WORST TV Characters of 2016
Note: As always, these are bad characters in otherwise good shows. There has to be a certain element of “ruining a good series” present, otherwise I could just list participants at an RNC debate… Have to Include It: The “Sand Snakes” and Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) in “Game of Thrones”…Actually, they didn’t get on my nerves so much,…
Please Watch My Short Film “Falling Towers”
First completed short film under the Alabama Liberal YouTube Channel (subscribe please), Playlist One Man Movies, movies made by one person, filmed in one day, from idea to finished film in one week, on a budget of no more than one dollar… Please watch, like, and comment
Book Review: the Terrific “Movie Freak”
Great books about movies are rare, and books that manage to truly capture the feeling movies can give you (like Patton Oswalt’s “Silver Screen Fiend”) are even rarer. Yet Owen Gleiberman’s “Movie Freak” may be the best book about movies I’ve ever read, and is the best book ever written about the lure of films, as evidenced from the book’s…
Book Reviews: “The Girls,” “Barkskins,” and “Lily and the Octopus”
It may seem like a cop-out to praise all three of these very different books, but they take wildly divergent paths to being equally terrific… Barkskins by Annie Proulx…A big, bold, ambitious book that practically has “Great Novel” stamped on the book cover. It’s about two “barkskins” (tree cutters) who settle in New France and…