Posts Tagged ‘drama’
 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY LA FILM FEST REVIEW: “Ruby Sparks”

  RUBY SPARKS:  Worth A Ticket – A Narrative Feat   Woody Allen is one of the most influential figures in modern independent film, but his ghost is usually evident in the many romantic comedy-dramas we get each...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

LIMITED RELEASE: “Beginners”

> Worth a Ticket:  A funny, moving story about navigating the twists of life.   Mike Mills’ BEGINNERS is about the fumble for love, the wrong turns and mistakes that can delay–although luckily not always p...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED REVIEW: “Hatfields & McCoys” Episode 2

  The second 2-hour chunk of the newly anointed most popular scripted show in the history of basic cable, History’s HATFIELDS & MCCOYS, was much like the first episode:  a strong opening hour followed by a secon...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED FINALE REVIEW: “Hatfields & McCoys”

    HATFIELDS & MCCOYS, already a blockbuster hit, kept its best and most compelling hours for last.  Although the conclusion of the 6-hour tale, directed throughout by Kevin Reynolds and with this installment wr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON PREMIERE REVIEW: “Franklin & Bash”

        This summer, TNT is airing an ambitious slate of original programming, including the final season of its signature series The Closer, the launches of spinoff Major Crimes and new procedural Perception, a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Margin Call”

    MARGIN CALL:  Worth A Ticket – The Real Sequel to”Wall Street”   MARGIN CALL is smarter and more gripping than Moneyball and The Ides of March combined–and those are two smart, grippi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: “Pan Am”

> 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 hav...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Moonrise Kingdom”

  MOONRISE KINGDOM:  Worth A Ticket – The Kingdom is Wes Anderson’s     Wes Anderson seemed to find the perfect vehicle for his particular form of brilliance with 2009’s stop-motion animated Fa...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED CABLE REVIEW: USA’s “Necessary Roughness”

> Premieres Wednesday 10PM on USA:  Change the Channel NECESSARY ROUGHNESS departs from the USA Network formula in several ways:  our heroine Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) is the mother of teenagers, she doesn’t ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BROADWAY JOURNAL: “War Horse” and “Jerusalem”

> For a new play, WAR HORSE has strong movie connections.  The play is adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford from the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo, and that novel is also the basis of Steven Spielberg’s upcoming f...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Grey’s Anatomy”

      Where were Jack and Sawyer?  Embracing the idea of “go big or go home,” the 8th season finale of GREY’S ANATOMY opened like the pilot for Lost, in the aftermath of the horrible crash of a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “Your Sister’s Sister”

> Lynn Shelton’s Humpday in 2009 was one of the most engaging pictures to come out of the mumblecore movement (“mumblecore,” for the uninitiated = ultra-low-budget, small scale film with dialogue mostly improv...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED PILOT REPORT: PREMIERING TONIGHT – “Smash”

> 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 sh...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY LA FILM FEST REVIEW: “People Like Us”

  PEOPLE LIKE US:  Watch It At Home – Not The First Movie Like This   Sam Harper (Chris Pine) is a guy we’ve met before.  He’s the fast-talking, self-absorbed hustler who gets along in life by shee...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “One Day”

  ONE DAY – Watch It At Home:  An Off-Day   What went wrong with ONE DAY?  It’s been clear for a while that its studio, Focus Features, didn’t have great confidence in the film:  first  they post...
by Mitch Salem