Posts Tagged ‘historical drama’
 

 

AFI FEST Film Review: “Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom”

  MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM:  Watch It At Home – More Like a Trudge The movies haven’t figured out what to do with Idris Elba.  The powerful, fiery actor has been spectacular on TV, first on The Wire and ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED FINALE REVIEW: “Bonnie & Clyde” – Part 2

  BONNIE & CLYDE saved its most idiotic inspiration for the end.  Up until its last few minutes, the second half of the Lifetime/A&E/History miniseries was perhaps marginally better than its first (which we dealt ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Midseason Finale Review: “Outlander”

  For fans of his remarkable Battlestar Galactica reboot, it’s still strange to see series creator Ronald D. Moore switch to Starz’s much more old-fashioned OUTLANDER.  (Some of the abruptness of that switch w...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Will”

  WILL:  Monday 9PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… TNT’s WILL, a gloss on the early life of William Shakespeare (and an unacknowledged one on the movie Shakespeare In Love), would seem like an extreme o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Darkest Hour” & “Mudbound”

  DARKEST HOUR (Focus/Universal – Nov. 22):  A shameless piece of rabble-rousing Hollywood biography, directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten, and served hot on a platter to Oscar voters.  The subjec...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Crossbones”

  CROSSBONES:  Friday 10PM on NBC Previously… on CROSSBONES:  The infamous pirate Edward Teague AKA Blackbeard (John Malkovich), has established an island kingdom for himself on New Providence in the Caribbean, wit...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Outlander”

  OUTLANDER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz OUTLANDER hasn’t been the ratings breakout for Starz that Power has been, but it may be something even more important:  the network’s first real buzz show, one that’s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Turn”

  TURN:  Sunday 9PM on AMC Previously… on TURN:  In 1776, apolitical New York cabbage farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is pulled into spying for the colonial cause, inveigled by his old friends Ben Tallmadge (Seth ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Downton Abbey”

  DOWNTON ABBEY – Sunday 9PM on PBS When it started airing 5 years ago, DOWNTON ABBEY was an artifact of nostalgia for a vanished era of British society, one Americans for all our proud egalitarianism have always eat...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Masters of Sex”

  MASTERS OF SEX:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Previously… on MASTERS OF SEX:  In 1956, brilliant but arrogant and socially awkward fertility expert William Masters (Michael Sheen) prepares to start his trailblazing re...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Masters of Sex”

  MASTERS OF SEX:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Turning the lives of sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson into a continuing series was an audacious idea from the start, and Season 2 of MASTERS OF SEX proved a c...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Peterloo” & “Viper Club”

  PETERLOO (Amazon – November 9):  Not so much a movie as an illustrated historical recitation.  Mike Leigh’s film concerns the brutal 1819 government militia attack on civilians listening to a public address...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “The White Queen”

  THE WHITE QUEEN:  Saturday 9PM on Starz Previously… on THE WHITE QUEEN:  Lady Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson) was a widow with two children who captured the lust, and then the heart, of England’s Kin...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Masters of Sex”

  MASTERS OF SEX:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime MASTERS OF SEX was one of television’s best surprises last season.  Despite a title and premise–the groundbreaking study of human sexuality by Dr. William Masters an...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Hell On Wheels”

  The fourth (and as it turns out penultimate) season of AMC’s HELL ON WHEELS was its most conventional and choppily focused.  Under showrunner John Wirth (the show’s 3rd in that post), the neo-western has aba...
by Mitch Salem