Continuing on with the “Best” of the year, these are the best TV scenes of the year. Check back in the next few days for Best TV Episodes, Best Movie Scenes, and then—of course—Best TV Series. 20. Runner-Up Fight Scenes: Although we’ll get to much better fight scenes in the countdown, the first season of Daredevil had one…
Category: Mindless Mondays
The Best Non-Fiction Books of the Year…
…I don’t read as much non-fiction as I do novels, so this is far from a comprehensive list of the year’s best, but–hopefully–there are enough recommendations here to interest someone. Honorable Mention: “Raw Deal: How the Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism are Screwing the American Workers” by Steven Hill…I just started this book, but I…
Entertainment Editorial: The Ten BEST TV Characters of the Year
A few days ago I listed the worst TV characters of the year, but it’s only fitting to celebrate the holidays with the best of the bunch… Best Trend: Badass Senior Citizens…Like The Strain’s Eldritch Palmer and especially Abraham Setrakian or Fargo’s Ted Danson or Justified’s cool criminal lovers Katherine Hale and Avery Markham. Sorry, Raylan and Ava, but Mary Steenburgen and…
The “Best” of the Year Coming Soon…
…Be sure to check back this week for the best in TV, books, and movies as we’ll be having some kind of countdown of the year’s “best” nearly every day between Christmas and New Year’s. So if you get bored after the presents or just want recommendations on what you might want to check out…
Entertainment Editorial: The Ten Worst TV Characters of the Year
Before we get to the end-of-the-year accolades (Best movies, TV, books, etc.) let’s get the bad news out of the way first in AL’s third annual “Worst TV Characters of the Year” list… As always, the unofficial subtitle of the list is “…in an otherwise good show,” as I’m sure there are worse characters out…
The Most Disappointing TV of the Year
Not all TV is created equal, and even though this year saw more terrific TV shows than ever before, they weren’t all gems. The following is a list of “disappointing” TV developments that could be TV moments, episodes, subplots, or entire seasons. And it’s not so much “the worst” TV as it is shows that…
Movie Review: The Good Dinosaur
Better than you’d think given the so-so reviews. I think critics wanted to make a point of saying it’s not as good as “Inside Out” and that’s technically true, but it’s closer than they think it is. What Works: Last year, there were no Pixar movies at all, and the three before that were “Monsters University,”…
Movie Reviews: “What We Do in the Shadows,” “5 to 7,” and “End of the Tour”
Three very different but critically acclaimed quasi-indies… The End of the Tour…A finely-observed film that received near-universal critical acclaim, but is a somewhat disappointing experience. It’s based on an interview-profile a Rolling Stone reporter (Jesse Eisenberg) did on writer David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) around the time “Infinite Jest” was coming out and catapulting him…
Movie Reviews: “Winter on Fire” and “Tell Spring Not to Come This Year”
Two different documentaries that will surely make you glad to be in America or at least a country not going through violent power-grabs… Winter on Fire…By far the more dramatically propulsive of the two, but–strangely–the less interesting one to me personally only because I’m not as interested in the Ukraine as I am Afghanistan. This…
Movie Reviews: “Heart of the Sea,” “Hunger Games 4,” and “The Peanuts Movie”
Sure, all of these are relatively recent movies still in theaters that probably deserve their own reviews, but we’re at the end-of-the-year crunch, so… In the Heart of the Sea…I’m a little bit biased since I love this type of movie. You’ve got the ocean; you’ve got an old-timey setting; you’ve got a man vs….
Reviews: Political Sex Scandal Movies “Zipper” and “The Runner”
Two cynical political dramas that center on aspiring senators trying not to be undone by sex scandals… Zipper…Patrick Wilson plays a state prosecutor running for senator who develops a love for prostitutes. The movie wants to have something interesting to say about why we judge politicians for their sex lives–and that would have been an interesting movie–but…
Movie Reviews: “Tangerine,” “Cinderella,” and “Run All Night”
Sometimes a film falls through the cracks, and so I lump them into the most unlikely film grouping in recent memory… Cinderella…A conventional take on “Cinderella” that people call “fresh” because it resists the urge to make Cinderella into some kind of vampire slayer or something. And I’ll admit that I’m tired of the trend…
Movie Review: In “Chi-Raq,” is Nick Cannon Worthy of Awards Consideration?
Spike Lee is back. This film–based on the classic Greek story of Lysistrata–is about a group of Chicago women who become fed-up with the violence and organize a sex strike to force their men into peace. It’s a provocative idea clearly designed to raise questions, and Lee proves yet again that he’s a master of…