Author Archive
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Whiplash”

  Damien Chazelle’s powerhouse WHIPLASH is about the pursuit of not just excellence, but perfection, and on its own deliberately limited terms it doesn’t land far from that mark.  Whiplash won both the Grand J...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/26/14

  The Grammy Awards had no trouble singing its song last night. CBS:  THE GRAMMY AWARDS were down slightly (0.2) from last year to 9.9 in adjusted numbers, probably because the show ran so far past primetime to an Oscar-level...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Boyhood”

  Back when Stanley Kubrick still planned to direct the film that became AI: Artificial Intelligence, he famously toyed with the idea of shooting it bit by bit over a period of years, so that the young protagonist would l...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “I Origins”

  The writer-director Mike Cahill has staked out a unique piece of narrative territory for himself.  In both Another Earth and his new I ORIGINS, which debuted at Sundance last week (and won the festival prize for best...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

OSCARLAND: Directors Guild Puts “Gravity” Into Orbit

  The Directors Guild of America tonight gave its prize for best film direction to Alfonso Cuaron and GRAVITY. This was not an unexpected result, but it solidifies the sense that this year we have what is (at least) a thr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “Black Sails”

  BLACK SAILS:  Saturday 9PM on Starz – Worth A Look The pirate action-adventure BLACK SAILS is Starz’s latest attempt to swing for the fences with ambitious original programming and finally be taken as seriou...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Low Down”

  No one can accuse LOW DOWN of attempting to glamorize the true story it tells.  Jeff Preiss’s first film as a director is a slow, grim dirge set in an underbelly of the jazz world in 1970s Los Angeles, and it...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Song One”

  Kate Barker-Froyland’s directing debut SONG ONE is so wispy and insubstantial that the bytes making up its digital images seem barely capable of adhering to a screen.  Clearly influenced by John Carney’s m...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Obvious Child”

  A surprisingly commercial concoction by Sundance standards, Gillian Robespierre’s OBVIOUS CHILD doesn’t feel very much unlike the pilot for a cable dramedy.  That’s not meant as any kind of dire crit...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Happy Christmas”

  Joe Swanberg, the director, writer and co-star of HAPPY CHRISTMAS, which premiered at Sundance earlier this week, makes Woody Allen look lazy.  He’s had something like a dozen features to his credit since the sta...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “The Skeleton Twins”

  Star power makes all the difference  in THE SKELETON TWINS.  Craig Johnson’s dramedy (written with Mark Heyman) takes place in fairly commonplace territory, especially at Sundance:  siblings bound together, whe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “The One I Love”

  The trouble with trying to recommend THE ONE I LOVE , written by Justin Lader and directed by Charlie McDowell, is that it’s impossible to describe how clever, surprising and intriguing it turns out to be without...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/20/14

  Anybody want to debate the importance of a lead-in from The Voice? NBC:  For the second consecutive week, THE BLACKLIST had a reduced, non-Voice lead-in (this week it was the season premiere of HOLLYWOOD GAME NIGHT, its...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Sleepy Hollow”

  SLEEPY HOLLOW has grown into one of the (few) pleasant surprises of the fall network season, a keenly judged mix of supernatural folderol, increasingly well-drawn characters and light time-travel comedy.  Enough of a hi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/19/14

  Things went about as expected on the night of the NFC Championship Game. NBC:  We expect the NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME to adjust to 18.8 once west coast timezones are taken into account.  You can find more detail about the foo...
by Mitch Salem