IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna – November 30):  Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight received a rapturous standing ovation at its Toronto premiere, and it’s unquestionably a beautiful piece of filmmaking,  Jenkins reunited with most of his Moonlight creative team, including cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell, and with a higher budget at […]

It’s a cliche to say, when a director of commercials and music videos helms his or her first feature film, that the result resembles a video extended to feature length–and certainly not one that’s always true, as the debuts of, among others, Ridley Scott (The Duellists) and David Fincher (Alien 3) have shown.  But cliches […]

  SLEEPY HOLLOW:  Monday 9PM on FOX SLEEPY HOLLOW turned out to be the best news FOX would get all of last season.  Although the show’s ratings dropped somewhat from their initially remarkable heights during its 13-episode run, it remained just about the only show on FOX’s air (other than its aging animated monuments) that […]

  SABOTAGE:  Not Even For Free – A Bloody Waste SABOTAGE is a lot bloodier than you’re expecting.  A lot bloodier.  I mention this upfront because although an R-rated Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle carries with it a certain likelihood of violence, the level of gore in Sabotage is more like what you’d see in a horror […]

  BROOKLYN NINE-NINE:  Tuesday 8:30PM on FOX Previously… on BROOKLYN NINE-NINE:  Fun and games in a Brooklyn police precinct.  Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) is the ace detective who solves crimes but is happily slovenly about everything else in his life.  Now he has to deal with a new boss, Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), who’s […]

  THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC The back half of THE WALKING DEAD‘s fourth season began by bringing the series back to square one:  isolated figures wandering without a clear goal through an anonymous landscape riddled with zombies. The episode, entitled “After,” picked up immediately after last fall’s finale, and established quickly that […]

> ROB – Thursdays 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We live in a Dickensian era of situation comedies, the best and worst combined on every network.  ABC is the home of both Modern Family and Work It; NBC contains Parks & Recreation and Whitney; FOX has New Girl and I Hate My Teenage […]

    ONE FOR THE MONEY:  Not Even For Free – Another Heigl Misfire   Movie stars are, make no mistake, trademarks.  Consumers who invest in 2 hours of George Clooney or Will Smith expect the same kind of reliable enjoyment that they get from a can of Coke or a pair of Nikes.  And […]