POLITICAL ANIMALS: Sunday 10PM on USA A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful […]

    THE GOODWIN GAMES:  Midseason TBD on FOX – Worth A Look Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as full pilot reviews, but […]

With the notable exception of Friday Night Lights, Hollywood has rarely even attempted a serious depiction of life in the American heartland in recent years.  More often, the center of the country is a setting for stories of random violence or bland, heartwarming family values.  In his fourth feature film, AT ANY PRICE, director Ramin Bahrani, […]

  For an election season SNL, tonight’s episode was oddly lightweight–possibly because the show had exhausted its political material for the week in Thursday’s Update special.  Aside from Weekend Update, the only trace of presidential politics tonight came in two fairly blah, one-note pre-taped fake commercials, one about the thickheadedness of voters who haven’t yet made up […]

A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to rear […]

  The midseason finale of the purported romantic thriller BEAUTY & THE BEAST delivered almost all romance, no thrills, as it continues to have only a glancing relationship with its title. Plotting has been this show’s weak spot from the start, so the fact that its procedural crime-solving story of the week was underdeveloped to […]

  GIRLS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The newly Golden Globe-winning GIRLS has returned, despite all its intervening success and attention, with its messiness intact.  “Messy” is a relative term in the world of Girls, of course, because although the lives of its characters are in complete disarray, auteur Lena Dunham’s vision (carried out with writing partners […]

  Maybe it’s time for a filmmaker who doesn’t give a damn about the Beat Generation to make the next movie about them.  Michael Polish’s BIG SUR joins last year’s On the Road as a Jack Kerouac adaptation that’s gorgeously filmed, performed with seriousness and commitment, and dramatically paralyzed.  (I missed this year’s other Sundance […]