Note: Both of these books are from last year, so I won’t review them in-depth. Most people who will read them probably already have, BUT don’t worry, I’ll have reviews for several newer titles throughout the day… The Twelve Tribes of Hattie…Nearly perfect. It follows “the African-American experience” through Hattie and her children and…
Category: Mindless Mondays
Roger Ebert: A Great Champion of Movies, Interracial Couples, and Cancer Victims
Last Thursday brought the devastating news that the country’s most iconic film critic, Roger Ebert, had passed away after announcing only the day before that his cancer was resurgent. It’s hard to explain the impact Ebert had on movies, but he has unquestionably had the most influence over the shape of film criticism over the…
Movie Review: Jurassic Park…3D
3D doesn’t add much to the experience of the original Jurassic Park movie, but I loved it as a kid and wanted to see it in theaters again… What Works:…Turns out, the real draw is seeing that T-Rex wreaking havoc on the big screen nearly twenty years later. In the 90’s, nobody could craft a suspense sequence…
Movie Review: The Host
Stephanie Myers (the Twilight author) strikes again. One of her books is the basis for this poorly received sci-fi film except that a lot of the same legions that stormed the theaters for Twilight didn’t show up to see this movie. That’s what really matters since nobody would much care what a critic thought of…
Movie Review: “G.I. Joe: Retardation”
I didn’t expect much from G.I. Joe: Retaliation…and it sure didn’t deliver much. I hated the first movie, and, if anything, this one is even worse. Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn’t reprise his villainous role, and Channing Tatum is in it for a total of ten minutes. [They supposedly held the movie’s release by a year so…
TV Review: Season Premieres of “Mad Men” and “Vice”
Mad Men…This episode starts off deliberately disorienting, throwing us for a minute as we try to figure out exactly what’s changed for all the characters since we last saw them more than a year ago. Time has certainly passed for our core group (only Don and Pete look exactly the same) but not much internally. Don…
TV Review: “Hannibal” #hannibal Season Premiere (Bonus Review of “The New Normal” Finale)
Hannibal…I was as skeptical about this show as I am any obvious cash-grab or “adaptation” of already popular characters (a la Bates Motel, A&E’s new show following America’s other most notable serial killer), but Hannibal is a bit different for two reasons: 1. The source material has already been shamelessly exploited by Thomas Harris, the…
TV Review: Justified’s Season Finale
Justified commenced their 4th season tonight and it was a satisfying but unspectacular event. [Some Spoilers Ahead] I’m a huge fan of the show’s first two seasons (both of which deserve solid A’s), but wasn’t so big on the uneven, scattershot 3rd season that, at times, resembled a Road Runner cartoon with too many villains…
TV Review: All Seasons of “Spartacus”
If there’s one show I never expected to watch (let alone like) it’s Starz’s Spartacus. At the time this show premiered I thought it was just a 300 knock-off made to capitalize on a movie that I didn’t really like, and that it would be a pale shadow of HBO’s Rome (which is widely assumed…
Marathon Viewings of “Banshee,” “Californication,” “Hunted,” “Magic City,” “Torchwood,” “Camelot,” and “Boss”
Last week, something unprecedented happened: A cable company actually delivered a service that they didn’t have to. Comcast (and their OnDemand channel Xfinity) opened all premium cable channels to non-subscribers so that people could perform marathon viewings of, say, Dexter or Spartacus (review of it later today). There were even some basic cable and broadcast…
TV Reviews: The Walking Dead #thewalkingdead
Tonight was a battle royale between not just The Governor and Rick, but between two ultra-nerd heavyweight shows: The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones (both of which have a rabid fan base that will tear the head off a man that says they’re not just as good as Mad Men or Breaking Bad). Game of Thrones…
Movie Review: Spring Breakers
This is otherwise known as the movie where Disney “angels” (Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgins) fall. They, along with two anonymous and interchangeable white girls go on a drug and booze fueled Spring Break with a few of them (but not Gomez) participating in a robbery to get down there. The label of “Disney girls…
Movie Review: The Croods
This movie is exactly what you would expect. It won’t surprise or challenge you in any way, and nothing rocks the boat as it sails toward a big family-first finish that packs a message. And yet, I enjoyed it. Your kids will love it, and I’d much rather sit through this than the last Ice…