Category: Entertainment Editorial
Ranking and Grading the Seasons of “Ozark”
If “Ozark” was ever a contender for the title of “Best Crime Drama on Television” then it long ago seceded that mantle to “Better Call Saul” (another crime drama finishing its run this year, albeit in a much higher quality). “Ozark” was as frustrating as it was excellent, often alternating between choice bits of drama…
Forget “Fantastic Beasts,” the Founding of Hogwarts is the Prequel We Really Want
Oscar Nominations: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Per usual, there were some notable snubs and some long-shot heartbreaker snubs that Alabama Liberal was holding out hope for. However, an unusually strong Best Picture category almost makes up for it… The Good When was the last time that the two best films of the year were actually nominated for Best Picture? Well, that’s…
ALL 2021 Movies Ranked and Graded
Quick Note: Better late than never, Alabama Liberal was so far behind on his annual movies countdown that I wasn’t able to post it on New Year’s Day (a tradition) but nearly a month later. My apologies, but I think you’ll agree that 2021 was a pretty good year for movies, and hopefully find several…
Best TV Shows of 2021
Note: One thing I noticed about the TV shows I selected as the “Best of the Year” are that setting plays a huge role in almost all of them. I can’t remember a time I’ve done this annual list, and the distinctive locations of each series were so central to them; that’s even true of…
Best TV Moments (or Episodes) of 2021
A few honorable mentions: I almost included Evan Peters’s shocking death in “Mare of Easttown,” but felt conflicted; while that was certainly the most shocking murder of 2021 TV, I just felt too bad for his character (one of my favorites) to really include it as a “Best” moment. Likewise, I enjoyed “Yellowstone”‘s no-fuss, no-muss…
The BEST TV Characters of 2021
I had a hard time narrowing the list down this year, and I rewrote it a few times before finally deciding to exclude a handful of favorites. The toughest cuts included: Mandy Patinkin’s wacky-yet-earnest judge in the fourth season of “The Good Fight,” Kate Winslet’s dogged detective in “Mare of Easttown,” Anthony Mackie’s soaring arc…
Ranking and Grading ALL Seasons of “Dexter”
Here’s hoping against hope Showtime won’t greenlight some God-awful Harrison spinoff, and this actually will be all the seasons of Dexter there are. The seasons of Dexter are a little hard to properly rank since the series has two bad seasons, two terrific seasons, and five that are different variations of “pretty good.” It’s those…
The Worst TV Characters of the Year
As always with this annual list of the year’s worst TV characters, I focused on TV shows that were of a reasonable quality, and it’s only a character or two (or 10) that wasn’t working. Worst Ending for a Beloved Character: Bosch (Titus Welliver) from “Bosch”…I love this series and am already planning to watch…
Richard Madden Should Be the Next James Bond
Alabama Liberal runs through a few of the most talked about choices for James Bond, but settles on Richard Madden as the perfect choice to succeed Daniel Craig (and Sean Connery)…
10 Fall Movies I’m Looking Forward to (and 10 I’m Not)
Longtime readers know I try to list movies I’m looking forward at the beginning of the year (for the entirety of that year), for the Summer, and for the Fall. Well, that didn’t really happen this Summer since it wasn’t entirely clear which movies would actually open. Likewise, several movies I’m including in this Fall…
Best TV Shows of the Century: The Top Five
Alabama Liberal concludes his countdown of the 25 best TV shows of this century. See his opinion on shows that overlap heavily with the best TV shows ever made.