The Netflix binge model, while obviously very appealing to viewers frustrated with the traditional weekly TV schedule, can sometimes do a disservice to shows that need time to build buzz and public awareness. The streamer’s terrific new political drama The Diplomat, for example, barely premiered two weeks ago yet already seems to have fallen out… Read More One Ambassador’s Plenty | The Diplomat Season 1 (2023) on Netflix
That Star Trek: First Contact is, without question, the best of the Next Generation crew’s feature films may lead to it being a bit overrated. This cast is so beloved from their years on television that fans desperately wanted (and still want) them to have at least one great movie as well. Personally, I’ve always… Read More This Is No Time to Argue About Time | Star Trek: First Contact (1996) 4K Ultra HD
The Roku Channel debuting its new multiverse-hopping dramedy Slip soon after Everything Everywhere All at Once won the Best Picture Oscar, and as both Marvel and DC hype upcoming comic book blockbusters on the same theme, could be either a blessing or a curse. In the show’s favor, multiverses are, like, so hot right now,… Read More Every Orgasm All at Once | Slip (2023) Roku Channel Limited Series
Star Trek: Generations is neither the best nor the worst of the franchise’s many feature films. Looking across the entire range of them, it falls somewhere near the lower middle of the pack. Narrowed down specifically to the four Next Generation cast movies, it would have to land in second place – but to be… Read More It Was… Fun | Star Trek: Generations (1994) 4K Ultra HD
Endings can be a very tricky thing to get right, especially the third time around. After seven seasons on the air, Star Trek: The Next Generation bid a satisfying farewell to television in the 1994 series finale episode, All Good Things. Unfortunately, the crew’s subsequent feature film career mostly underwhelmed. In fact, their last outing… Read More Hope Is Never Lost | Star Trek: Picard Series Finale (2023) on Paramount+
When trying to imagine a visual metaphor that defines the essence of the state of Florida, the image of an alligator rising to the surface of a lake carrying a gun on its back just about nails it. I wish I had thought of it. That scene actually happens in an early episode of Netflix’s… Read More The Goddamn State Is Shaped Like a Gun! | Florida Man (2023) Netflix Limited Series
Revisited a much-loved pop landmark from the heart of the Baby Boomer era with a pointedly more diverse cast and a stronger focus on the female point-of-view, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies feels like it was explicitly (if not expressly) designed to inflame our current culture wars and drive the anti-“woke” crowd absolutely insane… Read More It’s Gonna Be Different This Year | Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (2023) Paramount+ Series Premiere
In the latter half of the 1980s, just about every kid in my middle school had a Nintendo Entertainment System, or at least it felt so at the time. I may have been one of the few whose console didn’t come pre-packaged with a copy of Super Mario Bros. (Mine was bundled with Konami’s Rush’n… Read More 8-Bit Replay | Super Mario Bros. (1985) for NES
The action-adventure fantasy Megaforce is a legendarily terrible movie that any fan of 1980s cheese ought to find very easy to fall in love with. The film is a very specific product of the early ’80s, a moment when the manufactured patriotism and military-industrial expansion of the Reagan era collided with a pop culture explosion… Read More I Love You, But You’re Hopeless | Megaforce (1982) Blu-ray
The qualities that caused Dragonslayer to fail at the box office in 1981 are very likely the same reasons the film has endured for so long as a cult item with many passionate fans. Released at a time when what passed for movies in the fantasy-adventure genre were typically jokey and juvenile in nature (see… Read More We Shall Live and the Beast Shall Die | Dragonslayer (1981) 4K Ultra HD
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