Was this the season that Cinemax’s comparatively low-rent BANSHEE surpassed Justified?  In the subgenre of cop show pulp, the FX series has been the unquestioned class entry, with its distinguished Elmore Leonard auspices and elegantly violent plotting and dialogue.  But with a few episodes to go this season, Justified has felt a bit desultory, […]

  BAD WORDS:  Watch It At Home – Hilarious, For a While BAD WORDS eventually has to spell out its plot, and that’s when, like many an initially enthusiastic competitor, it fades, becoming increasingly soft and even sentimental.  For a while though, Jason Bateman’s directing debut, from a script by Andrew Dodge, is resolutely, and […]

  NEED FOR SPEED:  Watch It At Home – Not Enough Fuel If there was ever a movie that didn’t need to be over 2 hours long, the relatively unpretentious NEED FOR SPEED was it.  Action movies these days too often feel like they have to be epics, loaded with backstory and climactic showdowns that […]

  THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL:  Worth A Ticket – Wes Anderson’s Latest Fancy Box Has Something Inside Where has the “Academy” 1.37:1 screen aspect ratio been all of Wes Anderson’s life?  One of Anderson’s visual motifs (some would say “fetishes”) is to photograph his actors enclosed in windows, doorways, or other pieces of production design, […]

  THOSE WHO KILL:  Monday 10PM on A&E Previously… on THOSE WHO KILL:  Catherine Jensen (Chloe Sevigny) is a Pittsburgh homicide detective on the serial killer beat.  She has demons in her past, and so does Thomas Schaeffer (James D’Arcy), the forensic psychologist she takes on–against the wishes of her Captain, Frank Bisgaard (James Morrison)–as […]

  Since the TV cop show has come of age–a process that began back in the days of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, but has accelerated greatly in recent years–there have been repeated attempts to push the limits of the genre, to tell more novelistic stories that are as much about character and setting […]

  Is the dullness of HBO’s LOOKING a breakthrough or a flaw?  That’s the question that’s been following the series since its premiere two months ago, and it’s been argued both ways. From the start, Looking has been presented as a show about gay men that would break the mold, different from forebears like Will […]

  BELIEVE:  Sunday 9PM on NBC (Premiere Monday 10PM on March 10) – If Nothing Else Is On… Movie wizard and newly-minted Best Director Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron is the co-creator of BELIEVE (although it was never intended that he would stay with the show on a day-to-day basis once it went to series) and […]