Recap: The Idol (S1, Ep4) — Penultimate Episode Painfully Drags Its Way Towards the Finale
This one wasn’t even fun. I really, truly hated last week’s episode of The Idol with a passion that I haven’t felt for bad TV this year. After two decent […]
Recap: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (S16, Ep4) — Dennis Delights in Exerting Control Over the Gang
If there’s one thing you can count on when it comes to Always Sunny, it’s that Dennis (Glenn Howerton) always gets at least one episode to be a complete and […]
Review: They Cloned Tyrone Pops Visually, and as a Sharp Parody of Conspiracy Movies
There’s just enough crazy going on in this directing debut from Juel Taylor (writer of Creed II, Shooting Stars, and of course, Space Jam: A New Legacy) to make it […]
Review: Family Secrets and Childhood Anxiety Don’t Add Much to Second-Rate Horror Film Cobweb
Adding to the long list of family dramas couched in the framework of a horror movie, Cobweb (the feature filmmaking debut of Samuel Bodin) tells the story of 8-year-old Peter […]
Review: Earth Mama Follows a Young Mother Determined to Do Right by Her Kids, Even When It’s Hard
Although many of the details are different, writer/director Savanah Leaf’s directorial feature debut portrait of Black motherhood, Earth Mama, feels like it’s cut from the same layered cloth as A.V. Rockwell’s […]
Recap: The Idol (S1, Ep3) — Abysmal Episode Showcases the Worst the Series Could Possibly Be
I’ve been going pretty easy on The Idol when compared to a lot of the other criticisms of it. People really hate this show, don’t they? I don’t really blame […]
Recap: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (S16, Ep3) — The Gang Deals With Curses on a Banal Episode
I was hopeful after the pretty solid season premiere of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia—it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than almost everything Always Sunny has put out over […]
Review: New Documentary Joke Man Chronicles Comic Jackie Martling from Stand-Up to The Howard Stern Show
As someone who has been listening on and off to various incarnations of The Howard Stern Show since Stern was a local DJ in Washington, D.C. in the very early […]
Review: Christopher Nolan Gets Personal, Emotional and Political in a Sprawling, Engrossing Oppenheimer
Although it sometimes feels like we’re watching a history textbook or a lengthy biography, writer/director Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a sprawling, visually engrossing cinematic lesson in technology, innovation, American hubris, […]
Review: Bursting with Color, Wit and Just a Bit Too Much Plot, Filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Gives the Doll Depth
Filmmaker Greta Gerwig is three for three. Her first film as director, Lady Bird, was a funny-because-it’s-true romp through teenage-dom, the epitome of an indie darling when it was released […]
Review: Filmmaker Christian Petzold Turns to Contemporary Life to Find Drama, Sparks in Afire
Filmmaker Christian Petzold has made a few of the most compelling European films of the last several years in Phoenix, the story of a Holocaust survivor searching for answers in […]
Review: Theater Kids Rally to Save Theater Camp, a Mockumentary with Humor and Heart
It’s possible that at some point in grade school or junior high, you graced the stage for a school theater production, some simplified version of an Agatha Christie mystery or, […]