Author Archive
 

 

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: “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: “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
 

 
 

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
 

 

 

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
 

 
 

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
 

 

 

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
 

 
 

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: “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
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY 2014 Sundance Film Festival Capsule Reviews

  The consensus is that the 2014 Sundance Film Festival was a solid but unexciting one.  To an extent that’s a business judgment: whatever its leaders may say publicly, Sundance gave itself up long ago to being as m...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/27/14

  Viewers really wanted to see the Mother‘s side of the story. CBS:  The 200th episode of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, told from the Mother character’s point of view, leaped 0.7 to a season high 3.8, and seemed to perk ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Wish I Was Here”

  Zach Braff’s WISH I WAS HERE, his first film as a writer-director since Garden State 10 years ago, mixes genuine, deeply-felt emotion with the kind of contrivances that would grate even on a second-rate sitcom.  (...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “They Came Together”

  The writing team of David Wain and Michael Showalter (Wain directs) certainly knew that THEY CAME TOGETHER would be far from the first parody of romantic comedy movies to come along.  Date Movie opened back in 2008, Fri...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED: “Sean” Leaves the World Unsaved

  NBC has pulled the plug on SEAN SAVES THE WORLD, its misbegotten Sean Hayes vehicle.  The series has aired 12 of its 14 completed episodes (a total of 18 had been ordered), and it’s not yet clear what will be repl...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/28/14

  Not much to say about a night mostly occupied by the State of the Union Address. CW:  As the only network TV series airing against coverage of the President’s speech, SUPERNATURAL got a 0.1 boost to 1.2, even with...
by Mitch Salem