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…
Sunday’s Sermons: Inside the Death of the “Atheist Pope” Christopher Hitchens
This past week, the man known as “The Atheist Pope,” Christopher Hitchens, lost his long battle with cancer. Now, not everyone who follows politics is familiar with Christopher Hitchens. So if I had to pick just one book to sum up the man, I would pick Hitchens’s “God is Not Good” as a pretty accurate place…
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…
Perry’s “War On Religion” Campaign Ad, More False “Christians Are Persecuted” Rhetoric
Most of you have already seen Rick Perry’s by-now infamous campaign ad where he blasts Obama for his “War on Religion.” You probably haven’t seen it on TV–its intended place to be viewed, especially if you live in Iowa where Perry is pining his last ditch hopes to win the nomination–but it’s been steadily making…
How Obama Can Turn a Shitty Economy to His Advantage
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times (just depending on how much I watch Chris Matthews’s show): “The economy is Obama’s achilles heal.” “Unless Obama gets this economy under control, he’s toast.” “Republicans will hammer Obama on jobs and think that will be their ticket to a win in 2012.” “No…
Petty Issues
Nothing happened this week…nothing. Oh okay, that’s not true, but it feels like it is. This week felt a bit like groundhog day as there was a shooting at Virginia Tech, Sons of Anarchy had a disappointing season finale where nobody important died, and Rick Perry did something stupid. Obama gave a speech asking the…
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…