As a (mostly) unabashed fan of romantic comedies, you end up having to do a lot of apologizing. You’re supposed to couch your enjoyment of these films in the self-aware “of course, it’s JUST a romantic comedy.” Never mind that technically all films are JUST something. That’s what genre means. All films (short of maybe […]
Awake, like a lot of this season’s hour long offerings, is a deeply ambitious show. In its pilot episode, it is also a thoroughly engrossing ride, and one that promises great potential from the serialized medium. Despite this incredibly strong premier (more on that later), I left the pilot with a sense of unease about […]
Before the Show It’s been quite a few years since I’ve really, truly cared about the Oscars, but before that I was their biggest fan. They never gave the awards to the right people, and most of the presenters were lackluster, and the hosts seemed to have an incredibly thankless job, but god did I […]
I’ve often praised the Netflix/Hulu stumble upon. It’s one of the greatest parts about streaming video, the ability to happen upon strange, offbeat, foreign or forgotten gems when browsing through one’s Netflix queue/hulu home page. So here’s the latest installment of my two part series, Better Know a British Sitcom. Spy, the shortly-named Sky-1 tv […]
Wanderlust, the new David Wain (Stella, Wet Hot American Summer) comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, is a deeply funny movie, with laughs that run the gamut from the shocked “Oh Shit!” style laughter to the character-based chuckle. Unfortunately, despite its producer pedigree in the form of one Mr. Judd Apatow, it’s also a […]
Downton Abbey has become a bit of a phenomenon among a certain brand of television fanatic. Paced like a soap opera, with enough drama to spare, Downton Abbey combines a heaping of envy-fueled lifestyle porn with gripping human drama, all set in a distant enough past to make the often uncomfortable political and social allegories […]
There are many, many things that do not work about This Means War; check out Rotten Tomatoes, where the film is currently getting a 26% fresh rating. The movie is home to enough clichés to power about fourteen thousand post-modern comedies (like Friends with Benefits) about how clichéd romantic comedies are. The ending you can […]
We can all agree that Valentine’s Day is no Christmas, right? In terms of pretty much everything, Valentine’s Day pales in comparison to that holiday. And yet, this TV season, Valentine’s Day is making for some pretty damn good TV, nearly on the level of the Christmas special. Exhibit A: New Girl. This show has […]