OUT OF THE FURNACE:  Watch It At Home – Dark Thriller Is Less Weighty Than It Thinks A great deal of heart and effort has gone into OUT OF THE FURNACE, and it’s disappointing to see the film resolve itself into little more than a fairly routine revenge melodrama, even though director Scott Cooper […]

  As I was saying… THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG:  Worth A Ticket – The Long Road Continues, But This Time On A Better Path Jumping at once to the most pressing matter–which is more than its trilogy often does–Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is considerably more enjoyable than last year’s […]

  Creative risk-taking should always be applauded, especially in the conservative world of network television, and tonight NBC (in the particular person of its President Robert Greenblatt) and Executive Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron pushed all their chips to the center of the table for a massive live production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s THE […]

  MOB CITY:  Wednesday 9PM on TNT As a writer and director, Frank Darabont has never been in a hurry.  His The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic and The Mist all run over 2 hours (Green Mile is over 3), and his initial season of The Walking Dead had as measured a pace […]

  NOTE TO READERS: Warner Bros has an embargo in place that delays reviews of THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG until Sunday morning.  While I viewed the film as a member of the general public, and hadn’t obtained my ticket subject to that embargo, I have agreed with Warners to abide by its terms, […]

  THE ORIGINALS and its creator/showrunner Julie Plec have been fearless about plunging viewers of the New Orleans-set supernatural soap into a veritable bayou of mythology.  We’re half a season in, and already swamped by vampires, werewolves, vampire/werewolf hybrids, an impossible unborn hybrid baby, a teen super-witch, an assortment of garden-variety witches, and the occasional […]

  We’ll find out in just a few weeks exactly how big a hit NBC’s THE BLACKLIST really is, thanks to the network’s announcement that the show will air in January for the first time outside the protective shadow of The Voice as its lead-in.  Until now, it’s been the breakout hit of the fall, […]

  TREME:  Sunday 9PM on HBO You don’t need big ratings to be considered a success on HBO (just ask Lena Dunham), but generating buzz is essential.  That’s something TREME never did, despite a small hard core of enthusiastic fans that can sometimes drive that kind of attention.  Perhaps it was the downbeat setting of […]