Articles

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Awake”

Posted May 24, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  Check Out THE SKED’s Complete Season Finale Reviews HERE. Maybe Kyle Killen and Taylor Kitsch should have coffee together.  Kitsch, of course, is now infamous as the only man in history to star in two $200M bombs within a few weeks of one another (John Carter and Battleship, in case your memory is short).  […]

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THE SKED PILOT REPORT: NBC’s “The Playboy Club”

Posted June 7, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

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THE BIJOU RETROSPECTIVE: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”

Posted July 10, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Chris Columbus’ Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets were well-crafted, entertaining movies, but Alfonso Cuaron’s 2004 HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN was the first real Potter film. It’s also the least successful financially (if you think $795M worldwide is something to complain about).  This may be because it’s burdened by the most […]

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SHOWBUZZDAILY BROADWAY JOURNAL: “Follies”

Posted September 8, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> FOLLIES may be the strangest of all Broadway masterpieces; after 40 years, it’s still the most avant-garde work of Stephen Sondheim’s career. It’s easy enough to make the show sound linear:  set in 1971 (which was present-day when the musical was written), it takes place at a theatre that had, for some decades, housed […]

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THE SKED’S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: Free Agents”

Posted September 22, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> 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 […]

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THE SKED REVIEW: “Enlightened”

Posted October 11, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> ENLIGHTENED – Mondays 9:30PM on HBO – If Nothing Else Is On… As a writer, Mike White is drawn to stories of delusion.  Even though their tones (and commerciality) are widely divergent, his screenplays from Chuck & Buck to The School of Rock, The Good Girl to Nacho Libre share protagonists who are firmly […]

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THE SKED’S MIDSEASON RETURN: “The Vampire Diaries”

Posted January 6, 2012 by Mitch Salem

> CW’s biggest only hit THE VAMPIRE DIARIES returned to the schedule. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  The painstakingly-mounted plot to once and for all kill Original Vampire Klaus (Joseph Morgan) failed when Stefan (Paul Wesley), realizing that Klaus had rigged things so that if any harm came to him, Stefan’s brother Damon (Ian Somerholder) would […]

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SHOWBUZZDAILY @ SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Room 237”

Posted January 25, 2012 by Mitch Salem

> I write this as a fairly obsessive fan of Stanley Kubrick, back since I desperately wanted to see A Clockwork Orange in its original X-rated release but was too young to get in. So the very idea of ROOM 237, a feature-length film by Rodney Ascher constructed of the theories and interpretations that have […]

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