In HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas created an odd but appealing mix of traditional sitcom humor and conceptual originality (their upcoming FOX show The Goodwin Games looks like another unusual angle on the genre), and with comedy, as with drama, the thing about conceptual storytelling is that at some […]

MEN IN BLACK 3:  Watch It At Home – $250M Worth of “OK”   After years of development, a famously troubled production, untold rewrites and a budget that even Sony admits is around $250M (meaning $400M+ with marketing), MEN IN BLACK 3 is… fine.  Proficient and professional, neither inspired nor demanding, containing a few chuckles, […]

> Worth a Ticket; It Wasn’t Broke, They Didn’t Fix It In Hollywood, the word “sequel” is often code for “remake.”  This isn’t news:  the James Bond series has been going on for almost 50 years, and allowing for the occasional change in cast and some fluctuation in quality, it’s pretty much been the same […]

> Premieres Thursday 10PM on USA:  If Nothing Else Is On… (But it’s summer, so nothing is.) At this point, I think we could all identify a USA Network series blindfolded and with the soundtrack running backwards.  There’s the quirky, unconventional savant lead–available, like a comfortable sweater, in several colors:  cop/detective (In Plain Sight, Psych, […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots It’s entirely possible that BAD MOM wouldn’t have worked as a network TV series.  It represented an unusual attempt for a broadcast network (ABC) to step into the “edgy” sitcom territory that’s been the property of cable networks like HBO, Showtime and FX, and the pilot was clearly […]

> Oren Moverman’s first film as a director, The Messenger, was a beautifully contained, emotionally detailed story about soldiers assigned to deliver tragic news to the families of the deceased.  In his new film RAMPART, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Moverman is more ambitious and, unfortunately, a victim of the sophomore jinx. This […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and 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 in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]

>   THE DESCENDANTS:  Worth A Ticket – Flawed But Heartfelt It’s taken an unaccountable 7 years for Alexander Payne to follow up Sideways, the biggest hit of his career,  with THE DESCENDANTS, which will hit theatres in time for a serious awards season push in late November.  Sideways and Payne’s earlier Election are two […]