Roughly four months back, I made a list of the ten movies I was most excited to see, the five I was most on the fence about, and, of course, the five I was least excited to see. Now that summer is officially over, and we’re getting into the best movie season (the Fall and…
Category: Mindless Mondays
Entertainment Editorial: How The Five Seasons of Breaking Bad Mirror the Five Stages of Dying
As every other Breaking Bad fan gets ready for tonight’s final episode (of this year…with the final eight ever playing next summer), I thought I might share an observation I’ve noticed about the five seasons. The main plot of the show: a mild-mannered, brilliant (and perpetually under appreciated) high school chemistry teacher gets cancer and…
Movie Review: Lawless…A Surprising Dud
One of the movies I was looking the most forward to this summer (and now that summer is officially over, I’ll probably repost that list later today) was “Lawless.” I thought “Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Shia Lebouf, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, and Guy Pearce working off a script from the guy who wrote The Proposition…
Movie Review: The Expendables 2
I may be a bit late in reviewing this film (which is representative of my enthusiasm for seeing it) since most of the people that are going to watch it have already forked over their money by now. Well, I’m sorry for you…I’d give you a refund but I’m also going to guess that the…
Mom Jokes: The Revenge of the Wives
We do a lot of marriage jokes in this section, and quite a few deal with men who have been…not so happily married for decades. Well, today’s it’s the wife’s turn… He said: I don’t know why you wear a bra, you’ve got nothing to put in it. She said: Why do you wear pants?…
TV Reviews: Season Finales of Breaking Bad and Small Town Security
Okay, so technically it’s not Breaking Bad’s season finale, and it’ll continue this season with eight final episodes, but that’s all the way until next year. For now, let’s get into it… Breaking Bad…It’s no secret I consider this the best show currently on television, and this season has been no exception. It may not…
Alabama Liberal’s Book of the Month Club Pick is…
“Dare Me” by Megan Abbott. I wasn’t totally in love with any of the books I read this month, but Dare Me is a very strong book that cleverly reinvents the noir genre by setting it in a high school…and unravels some deep truths about what the book calls, the “dangerous boredom of teenage girls.”…
Why Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” is a Great Show (and Why Most Critics Don’t Like It)
Watching HBO’s great new show “The Newsroom,” two feelings come over me. First, a feeling of “I can’t believe a show gets it this honest, this succinct on these complex issues, this…right.” Second, a feeling of “Of course critics largely pan this show. It’s as much about their failures as it is the news media’s.” So, in a tradition I…
TV Reviews: “True Blood” Season Finale, Premiere of “Go On,” “Animal Practice,” and “Grimm”
Although I really want to talk about a great show a little later today (Newsroom), let’s warm up by quickly grading some shitty ones. [Except for Grimm, which is just mediocre, not bad.] True Blood…Last night was the fifth season finale of HBO’s (current) longest running drama show, and just realizing that makes me depressed. The fact…
Mom Jokes: Grandfathers Don’t Know Everything
Hunter was 4 years old and was staying with his grandfather for a few days. He’d been playing outside with the other kids, when he came into the house and asked: ‘Grandpa, what’s that called when two people sleep in the same bedroom and one is on top of the other?’ His Grandpa was a little…
TV Reviews: Finales of Political Animals, The Closer, and Falling Skies
In the last week, we’ve seen long running TV series end (The Closer), short running TV series end (Political Animals), and the second season finale of an occasionally strong, often frustrating series (Falling Skies). The Closer…I’ve never watched a single episode of this show, so the “finale” (which really just set up an almost identical…
Monday Morning Movie Reviewer: Hope Springs…A Minor Triumph of a Movie
The exact opposite of Killer Joe (a daring surface movie with a somewhat cheap center), Hope Springs is a comfortable, feel-good movie that actually contains a quiet, deep knowledge of relationships. There is more truth and perceptiveness in this film than in the last twenty big studio romances I’ve seen. Much like Ruby Sparks, it starts…
Movie Review: My First NC-17 Rated Movie Theater Experience with “Killer Joe”
I have never actually seen an NC-17 rated movie during its theatrical run until this film. Now I can say I’ve lived. It was drastically different than most films shown at big screen multiplexes. First I had to show ID when I bought a ticket, even though only the most obtuse theater cashier would think…