Posts Tagged ‘CIA’
 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 2 Capsule Reviews: “Snowden,” “American Pastoral” & “Carrie Pilby”

  SNOWDEN (Open Road – Sept 16):  Oliver Stone’s return to politically-charged biography is subdued by the standards of his Nixon or W.  It’s a hagiography that follows the character arc of his Born of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Homeland”

  What kind of show, in the end, is HOMELAND?  Focus groups are often asked simply to describe whatever it is they’ve just seen, and Homeland has tried to be a romance, a thriller, an action adventure, a story about...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON PREMIERE REVIEW: “Covert Affairs”

  COVERT AFFAIRS:  Tuesday 10PM on USA   WHERE WE WERE:  At the CIA, where Annie Walker (Piper Perabo), the young, beautiful languages expert who supposedly works for the Smithsonian, is actually an agent.  (She me...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Homeland”

  If HOMELAND hadn’t once been so good, it wouldn’t be so painful now to see what it’s become.  Season 5 was by no means terrible:  it was crisply produced, Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin remain enviab...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “RED 2”

  RED 2:  Watch It At Home – Less Fizz in the Drink This Time The first RED was a disarming surprise, a rom-com action adventure about retired but very lethal spies as bubbly as it was explosive.  It made almost $2...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

NIELSENWAR 2014-15 Trailer Review: NBC’s “State of Affairs”

  STATE OF AFFAIRS:  Monday 10PM on NBC (starting November 17) THE FACTS:  Katherine Heigl is the CIA agent in charge of putting together the President’s (Alfre Woodard) daily list of the nation’s Top 10 thre...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Covert Affairs”

  COVERT AFFAIRS:  Tuesday 9PM on USA Last season was an important one for COVERT AFFAIRS, as it transitioned from being a light spy caper about appealing newbie CIA agent Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) to presenting Annie a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Finale Review: “Homeland”

  No season of Showtime’s HOMELAND ever came close to touching the wild highs of its first, an amazing concoction that managed to combine the tension of a great thriller with constant twists, impossible romance and p...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Zero Dark Thirty”

  ZERO DARK THIRTY:  Worth A Ticket – The Year’s Most Gripping Thriller Is True You already know how ZERO DARK THIRTY ends.  You knew how All the President’s Men ended, too, and Apollo 13 and Titanic. ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SERIES FINALE REVIEW: “Burn Notice”

  BURN NOTICE went heavy on action for its final hour, attempting to look like a more expensive show than it actually ever was.  Burn was never a well-respected series (it was memorably ridiculed in an SNL skit as a h...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Allegiance”

  ALLEGIANCE:  Thursday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else is On… ALLEGIANCE is what happens when broadcast network executives watch cable.  The story of long-term, deep-cover Russian agents is clearly, shall we s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Covert Affairs”

  The problem with having your main character “go dark” is that she actually has to get somewhere.  In the Season 4 finale of COVERT AFFAIRS, Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) finally seemed to cross a line by coldb...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “The Report” & “Them That Follow”

  THE REPORT (Amazon):  Scott Z. Burns’s political expose is important and engrossing, but it’s composed of so much exposition that it may have trouble finding a mainstream audience.  (Which made Amazon’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Homeland”

  Although Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin are still present to provide a continuing center of gravity, the HOMELAND that concluded its sixth season tonight is almost unrecognizable from the one that premiered in 2011.  T...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Pilot + 2 Review: “State of Affairs”

  STATE OF AFFAIRS:  Monday 10PM on NBC Previously… on STATE OF AFFAIRS:  Charleston–call her Charlie–Tucker (Katherine Heigl) is the CIA analyst whose task it is to put together the President’s D...
by Mitch Salem