Posts Tagged ‘thriller’
 

 

THE SKED MIDSEASON TRAILER REVIEW: FOX’s “The Following”

    THE FOLLOWING:  Midseason MONDAY 9PM on FOX WHAT IT’S SAYING:  Jack Bauer meets Hannibal Lecter.  Only this time, Lecter has a cult of imitator serial killers. WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING:  Not for the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

ShowbuzzDaily’s Sundance 2022 Reviews: “Living,” “Call Jane” & “Watcher”

  LIVING (no distrib):  Over the years, there’s periodically been talk about remaking Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 masterpiece Ikiru, including a rumored updated US version that would have starred Tom Hanks in the le...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “The Following”

  If the first season of THE FOLLOWING stands for anything, it’s that the significant difference between the best cable dramas and the vast majority of their network counterparts hasn’t been about the ability t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “The Woman In the Fifth”

> Pawel Pawlikowski is a filmmaker whose name deserves to be better known: his films Last Resort and My Summer of Love are small but beautifully realized stories of intricate human emotion. His new picture The Woman In the Fift...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Prisoners”

  The prevailing atmosphere in Denis Villenueve’s PRISONERS will be familiar to anyone who’s been watching cable TV drama for the past few years.  Gloom, grief, hopelessness, helpless rage–it’s h...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Purge”

  THE PURGE:  Watch It At Home – Dopey, Violent Allegory Nevertheless Packs a Punch THE PURGE is heavy-handed, borderline reprehensible nonsense–but that’s not to say it doesn’t work.  James DeMon...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON PREMIERE REVIEW: “Touch”

  TOUCH:  Friday 9PM on FOX Tim Kring’s Heroes is a famous example of a hit series imploding in its second season, but his TOUCH–not nearly as big a success in its first version–is, at least, more intrig...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED REVIEW: “American Horror Story”

> AMERICAN HORROR STORY – Wednesdays 10PM on FX – Potential DVR Alert The first inkling of just how deranged AMERICAN HORROR STORY is going to be comes with one of the early “normal” scenes.  The lo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Jack Reacher”

  JACK REACHER:  Watch It At Home – Next on TNT:  Tom Cruise If Tom Cruise’s career ever takes him to do a TV pilot, it would be a lot like JACK REACHER.  And not a classy, sophisticated pilot for AMC or H...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: “American Horror Story”

> 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 SKED MIDSEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Scandal”

  SCANDAL has been having a barn-burner of a Season 2, emerging as a pulpier, crazier Homeland (not that Homeland hasn’t been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks), a DC-set melodrama where everybody is lying to som...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”

  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO:  Worth A Ticket – David Fincher Meets Lisbeth Salander   The most remarkable thing about David Fincher’s version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (written for the Engl...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Covert Affairs”

  Cable’s USA Network has the reputation of being a place where procedurals basically repeat variations on the same episode over and over for years, until the series finally dies of old age.  That’s certainly ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “Drive”

> DRIVE is a self-conscious genre movie, and those are tricky propositions.  On the one hand, you need to make your existential or other textual statement with all the artistry at your command; on the other, you still have...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED REVIEW: BBCA’s “The Hour”

> THE HOUR:  Wednesday 10PM on BBCAmerica:  Potential DVR Alert Here’s what’s wrong with BBCAmerica. Don’t get me wrong:  it’s marvelous that BBCA exists to bring us shows like Luther, the...
by Mitch Salem