This movie stars George Clooney as a Hawaiian father of two whose wife is left permaneantly comatose from a boating accident, and only after that accident does he learn that she was cheating on him. It is also a sure thing best picture nominee and will be on almost every critic’s top ten list. Problem is…I’m…
Category: Mindless Mondays
Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows
The good news: this movie is exactly what you think it would be…that’s also the bad news. What Works: This is clearly a sequel that wants to leave the first one’s audience happy so once again Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are back as the ambiguously gay duo, Holmes doesn’t want Watson to get…
Movie Review: Cedar Rapids
Later today will bring reviews of some more current movies (Sherlock Holmes 2 and The Descendants) but first comes this smaller hit that opened earlier in the year but somehow I never got around to seeing it. In it, Ed Helms plays a mild-mannered, (very) small town insurance salesman who goes to the “big” city of Cedar…
TV Review: Homeland
So only a few hours ago, Showtime’s Homeland ended their first season, and (despite a few crafty suspense sequences) it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. [Spoilers: By contrast, Showtime’s only other credible drama, Dexter, finally kicked things into high gear with the predictable death of the Doomsday Killer but at the…
Monday Morning Movie Review: Young Adult
And so concludes our quartet of films in limited release, but unlike Melancholia, A Dangerous Method, or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I would strongly recommend this movie with no hesitations. This is a lock for my “Ten Best of the Year List.” Young Adult stars Charlize Theron as a young adult book author (or ghost…
TV Review: Boardwalk Empire’s Season Finale and the First Episode of Luck
Last night, HBO served up a special one-two punch of dramas you were either excited by or bored with depending on who you are. It was the second season finale of Boardwalk Empire followed immediately by a special sneak preview of the first episode of their new drama Luck. Let’s start with Boardwalk Empire. I’ve…
Movie Reviews: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Another movie playing in only a handful of theaters now but primed to expand soon. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is based on the excellent John Le Carre book (and also the BBC miniseries based on the book) of the same name about a retired master spy named George Smiley getting asked to ferret out a…
Movie Reviews: A Dangerous Method
Another movie playing in very limited release. This one based on the true story of the father of psycho-therapy, Sigmund Freud, his protege turned rival Carl Jung, and the Russian patient of Jung’s that came in between them when Jung began an affair with her. What Works: The movie nails the disappoints and resentments that…
Movie Reviews: Melancholia
This review kicks off a day of true quality, as I’ll be reviewing four independent movies (this, A Dangerous Method, Young Adult, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) only in limited release. So for once I’ll be ahead of the curve in seeing movies before most of America does…but, then again, I doubt most of America…
Entertainment Editorial: Who’s Your Favorite MSNBC Host?
It’s pretty rare I get to combine politics with entertainment but I’m hoping today will inspire some discussion. MSNBC is known as the “liberal Faux News” for its brand of liberal commentators, and today I’d like to know who your favorite is? If I had to pick a favorite among the “five core commentators” (Chris…
TV Review: Hell On Wheels
Today’s TV review is AMC’s Hell on Wheels, a show that a couple of people asked me to review weeks ago on the day after its premiere. I would have been happy to oblige then (and welcome any requests for future shows) but I like to give a show a couple weeks to marinate. I…
Monday Morning Movie Reviews: Take Shelter
Unlike all of the other movies I’m reviewing today, this one is still in (very few) theaters. It will be a couple months before anyone can rent it but I would really recommend that. I think this is the kind-of movie that plays best at home for four or five bucks instead of in a…
Movie Reviews: Bellflower
Another one for the scrap heap. And by that I mean that Bellflower technically came out months ago (I believe it first went into very limited release in early August) but I only now caught up with it On Demand. Bellflower is a bit different than The Dilemma or Super or Last Night in that…