I awoke Monday morning to two surprises: snow on the ground (the first of the season) and the 2023 Golden Globe Award nominations being announced on the Today show. I thought we as a culture were collectively over the Golden Globes? It appears that the show’s banishment from broadcast was just a temporary measure –… Read More Oh, Are We Supposed to Care About the Golden Globes Again? – 2023 Nominations
Made for a pittance by an untested young writer-director, Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs caused a sensation at film festivals from Sundance to Cannes, was enormously hyped when it played in limited theatrical release, and would prove to be one of the most important titles of the 1990s indie boom. Of course, it would also launch… Read More Let’s Get Rambling | Reservoir Dogs (1992) 4K Ultra HD
Once a decade, to much fanfare and debate, British magazine Sight & Sound publishes its so-called “Greatest Films of All Time” poll. People take this seriously for some reason. The latest results were released last week, crowning a new champion and also, notably, kicking a bunch of established classics to the curb. Much virtual ink… Read More Brief, Probably Inconsequential Thoughts on the 2022 Sight & Sound Greatest Films Survey
At this point in the history of television, we need another murder detective procedural about as much as the real world needs more murders. That genre has long since been explored from every possible angle. Even with that in mind, it’s hard to fault a show like Amazon’s Three Pines when it’s done so well.… Read More The Most Welcoming Place on Earth | Three Pines (2022) Amazon Prime Series Premiere
Produced 34 years after the original, Disney’s reboot of Willow is a fair bit better than the film that inspired it. That’s something of a relief, if not exactly much of an achievement. Improvement or not, the new Willow is still a dull, derivative, and uninteresting fantasy adventure. Not every old movie deserves nostalgia. As… Read More The Fellowship of the Underwhelming | Willow (2022) Disney+ Series Premiere
Back in the days when a proper live-action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings still seemed impossible, George Lucas (riding high off the success of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises) got together with Ron Howard (who’d done very well with Splash and Cocoon) to mount their own high-fantasy adventure copycatting the J.R.R.… Read More An Unexceptional Journey | Willow (1988)
Tim Burton finally tackles The Addams Family. That pairing feels like it was inevitable. (I bet he’d also like to do The Munsters if Rob Zombie hadn’t just sullied it.) Sadly, his new Netflix series Wednesday proves to be a case of many missed opportunities. The show has a good cast, an appealing performance from… Read More Emotion Equals Weakness | Wednesday Season 1 (2022) on Netflix
Sequels cranked out rapidly following the success of a hit movie too often fail to recapture the magic, but 1993’s Addams Family Values manages to improve upon its predecessor. The film doubles down on all the parts that worked the first time around, eliminates or fixes the parts that didn’t, and generally feels like a… Read More Let’s Not Forget Our Cheery Little Chippewas | Addams Family Values (1993)
The 1991 theatrical film adaptation of The Addams Family is, without question, a shameless example of corporate assembly line filmmaking and I.P. whoring. Somehow, it also kind of works and remains suitably entertaining even a few decades on. In industry terms, the movie was a nearly perfect package, pairing up a beloved pop culture property… Read More Do What They Wanna Do, Say What They Wanna Say | The Addams Family (1991)
Be advised that, no, 1899 is not another Yellowstone spin-off titled after a random year from a prior century, like 1883 or the upcoming 1923. Some confusion on that point may be understandable. It seems that show-runners these days have run out of ideas for what to call their TV series set in the past.… Read More What Is Lost Will Be Found | 1899 Season 1 (2022) on Netflix
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