QUARTET:  Watch It At Home – AARP’s Version of a Rock Concert Reunion Movie It may come as a surprise to some of the directors who’ve tangled with Dustin Hoffman to hear that QUARTET is supposed to mark his first time in charge, but officially, at least, Hoffman has never taken the reins on […]

  ABC’s NASHVILLE has reached the midpoint of its season as one of the better dramas on network television, and also one of the more frustrating.  Particularly galling is that it seems to falter worst at the things other, less interesting shows do with much less effort. Plotting, for example.  Within the show’s mostly parallel […]

  Having blown up the initial premise of their show in its Season 1 finale, ONCE UPON A TIME creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have inventively plotted a Season 2 that came to a satisfying Act 1 culmination in the show’s Fall Finale episode, which they wrote and which was directed by Ralph Hemecker.  […]

  REVENGE, in its second season, demonstrates the perils of stretching a good thing too far.  (Also being stretched:  ABC’s concept of a “fall finale,” since unlike shows like Revolution and The Walking Dead that won’t be returning until February or March, Revenge will be back after the holidays.) Revenge started with a premise that […]

  The Season 3 finale of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, like the season itself, was an exercise in patience and a mix of satisfaction and anti-climax.   Written by series creator Terence Winter and Executive Producer Howard Korder, and directed by house director Tim Van Patten, the first half of the episode had antagonists Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) […]

  It’s odd to think that the biggest hit on American television is centered around the flesh-eating undead, but enough about Fox News…  THE WALKING DEAD is a genuine television phenomenon, in more ways than one.  To begin with, it’s a staggering success, a cable series that routinely has larger audiences (in the 18-49 demographic, […]

  KILLING THEM SOFTLY:  Watch It At Home – Low-Rent Gangsters and A Study In American Existentialism Andrew Dominik’s talents as a filmmaker are matched only by his pretentions.  Dominik’s first film was the Australian Chopper, which introduced Eric Bana to the world, but he’s better known for his mournful The Assassination of Jesse James […]

  One of the many ways in which broadcast networks have started to resemble their cable counterparts is in the structure of a series season.  For years, cable has aired its shows, especially serialized series, in clearly-defined, repeat-free mini-seasons, with different programming in those slots during hiatus periods, rather than following the historical broadcast model […]