Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Mayday” and “Prisoners Of the Ghostland”

Posted February 2, 2021 by Mitch Salem

  MAYDAY:  The fantasy whatzit is a Sundance staple, and Mayday fits into that category.  (Paradise Hills was a recent example from a past festival.)  Ana (Grace Van Patten), short for Anastasia, is an ignored and abused waitress who finds herself swimming through a portal to what turns out to be an otherwise deserted island […]

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Pilot + 1

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “WandaVision”

Posted January 15, 2021 by Mitch Salem

  WANDAVISION:  Episodes 1 & 2 available now on Disney+, remaining episodes drop 12:01AM each Friday   WANDAVISION mixes the old and the new in ways both self-conscious and not.  COVID delays on other projects led to it becoming the first genuine piece of MCU content created for the small screen.  (Earlier series like Agents […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “The Neighbors”

Posted September 20, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  THE NEIGHBORS:  Friday 8:30PM on ABC THE NEIGHBORS was last season’s reminder that a pilot isn’t the final word on a series.  In fact, neither are the first several episodes.  It took a while for Dan Fogelman’s show to demonstrate that it was more than its inane premise and slapstick gags about aliens living […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY @ SUNDANCE 2013: “Don Jon’s Addiction”

Posted January 28, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  When Joseph Gordon-Levitt decided to make his feature writing and directing debut with DON JON’S ADDICTION (starring in it as well), his attitude was clearly Go Big Or Go Home.  To a large extent, he’s pulled off his audacious comedy, although in keeping with its theme, this may be the kind of movie people […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Animal Kingdom”

Posted May 31, 2017 by Mitch Salem

  ANIMAL KINGDOM:  Tuesday 9PM on TNT ANIMAL KINGDOM has been a key part of TNT’s rebranding as a hipper TV destination than the home of Major Crimes and The Last Ship, and tonight’s Season 2 premiere promised more of the same, with plenty of FX-level sexuality and general grittiness on display.  The key change, […]

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Articles

THE SKED’S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: “Last Man Standing”

Posted October 12, 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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Pilot + 1

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Once Upon A Time In Wonderland”

Posted October 18, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND:  Thursday 8PM on ABC Previously… on ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND:  In this revisionist spin on the classic tale, a Victorian-era young adult Alice (Sophie Lowe) has escaped from the asylum where her father kept her after hearing the wild tales of her childhood, and she’s headed […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “The 100″”

Posted June 12, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  Season 1 of CW’s THE 100 worked better than logic suggested it should, considering that it was basically a thrift shop of plotlines and tropes from other, more ambitious fantasies, some aimed at teens (The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies), some not (Lost, Battlestar Galactica).  The post-apocalyptic survival stories moved briskly, sparked by […]

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