Posts Tagged ‘dysfunctional family’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Finding Carter”

  In its second season, MTV’s FINDING CARTER made a disappointingly dim argument for sustaining itself beyond its initial premise.  The series remains well-acted, and it has its emotionally pursuasive moments, but i...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Summer Finale Review: “Chasing Life”

  CHASING LIFE, which aired its not-quite-half season finale tonight, could better have been titled What Not To Do If You Get Cancer.  That, in itself, isn’t a criticism:  a story about a narcissistic idiot who get...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Midseason Finale Review: “This Is Us”

  Last week’s episode of NBC’s THIS IS US notched an impressive achievement:  in Live + 7 ratings, it moved past Empire to become the highest rated drama on broadcast TV.  Admittedly, L7 ratings aren’t ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Wildlife” & “The Tale”

  WILDLIFE (no distrib):  If you’ve ever felt sorry for youngsters who are cordoned off from their parents’ difficult relationships, and then blindsided by the consequences, Paul Dano’s directing debut a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Midseason Premiere Review: “Dallas”

  DALLAS:  Monday 9PM on TNT As TNT pushes its action-oriented “Boom” branding campaign (successfully with The Last Ship, not so much with Murder In the First nor apparently the new Legends), DALLAS seems more...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Animal Kingdom”

  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...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “A Kid Like Jake” & “You Were Never Really Here”

  A KID LIKE JAKE (no distrib):  Silas Howard’s dramedy is a small-scale triumph, successfully navigating its way from a wry account of upper-middle-class Brooklynites Alex and Greg (Claire Danes and Jim Parsons) tr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto 2014 Review: “This Is Where I Leave You”

  THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU (Warners) – Opens September 19 – Worth A Ticket Jonathan Tropper’s very successful day job is writing seriocomic novels about families and romance that are distinguished by the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “A Tale of Love and Darkness”

  Natalie Portman certainly hasn’t made it easy for herself with her debut as a writer/director, A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS.  The film, which premiered at Cannes (but tellingly, doesn’t yet have a US distribu...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Rebel In the Rye,” “Newness,” “Landline,” “I Don’t Feel At Home,” “Ingrid Goes West” & “Walking Out”

  REBEL IN THE RYE (no distrib):  Danny Strong’s first film as a director is a biography of J. D. Salinger (Nicholas Hoult), and it hits all the Salinger bullet points:  his early struggles to get published, his sp...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere TV Review: “Here and Now”

  HERE AND NOW:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – In the Queue HERE AND NOW is sort of the Alan Ball/HBO version of The Fosters, which means that its characters are a generation older, it has a lot of sex, a lot of talk, and a l...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Good Behavior”

  GOOD BEHAVIOR:  Sunday 10PM on TNT As TNT continues with its scorched-earth policy of shedding its old-guard mainstream successes (Rizzoli & Isles, Major Crimes) for the more adult, serialized dramas favored by netw...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Shameless”

  SHAMELESS:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime The Gallagher family is undergoing transitions as Season 4 of Showtime’s SHAMELESS begins, and the tone is considerably less rambunctious than in previous seasons.  That’s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE FILM REVIEW: “Hellion”

  Of all the films in this year’s US Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Kat Candler’s HELLION was the one that most closely matched what’s become a festival template: Aggressively shaky handheld camerawork...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “The Real O’Neals”

  THE REAL O’NEALS:  Tuesday 8:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel Whatever its other ailments, over the past few years ABC has had an extraordinary run of diverse, smart family sitcoms,–an area where other...
by Mitch Salem