THE MONUMENTS MEN:  Watch It At Home – George Clooney’s Film Is No Classic Work of Art George Clooney’s THE MONUMENTS MEN is a startlingly complete failure.  It’s Clooney’s fifth film behind the camera (after Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck., Leatherheads, and The Ides of March), but it’s the […]

  Of all the films in this year’s US Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Kat Candler’s HELLION was the one that most closely matched what’s become a festival template: Aggressively shaky handheld camerawork:  Check. Small-town dysfunctional family (alcoholic/grief-stricken division):  Check. Third act sparked by violence:  Check. Rebellious yet sensitive and misunderstood young protagonist:  Check. Commercially successful […]

  For SHOWBUZZDAILY’s full set of Sundance capsule reviews, click here.   What kind of filmmaker does Mona Fastvold want to be?  It’s an existential question that comes up often at Sundance, where artistic and industry cred are often judged at the same time.  THE SLEEPWALKER, Fastvold’s first film as director and (with Brady Corbet, […]

  BLACK SAILS:  Saturday 9PM on Starz Previously… on BLACK SAILS:  In 1715, Nassau and the waters around it weren’t yet controlled by any government, and existed instead as the domain of independent pirates and merchants.  Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) of the Walrus is on the trail of his big score, the one that will […]

  The unquestionable highlight of tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE was brief but heartfelt:  the tail-end of Weekend Update, as Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen (wordlessly, as wandering sight-impaired former NY Governor David Paterson) and, inevitably, Bill Hader’s Stefon, all trooped in to bid farewell to co-anchor Seth Meyers on his way to take over […]

  In fairness, I should note up front that I didn’t keep up with THE CARRIE DIARIES very often after its season premiere, so this won’t pretend to be an authoritative look at its second season.  Still, checking back in for its season (for now) finale, the mild growing-up tale I found wasn’t very different […]

  THAT AWKWARD MOMENT:  Watch It At Home – Low-Impact Rom-Com If you heard that a new indie movie featured the stars of the past 2 years’ back-to-back Sundance sensations, Michael B. Jordan from 2013’s Fruitvale Station and Miles Teller from this year’s Whiplash, would you be intrigued? What if Zac Efron was the other […]

  Of all the titles in this year’s Sundance US Dramatic Competition line-up, none may have been more promising on paper than GOD’S POCKET.  Based on a novel by Pete Dexter, it marked the feature directing debut of the actor John Slattery, whose work behind the camera on Mad Men has produced some of the […]