US Masterchef Returns For Another Helping
MasterChef is back on Fox for a fifth season of Gordon Ramsey’s yelling, Joe Bastianich’s devastating snark, and Graham Elliot’s kindly, but firm, criticism. We’re watching home cooks from...
Category: Commentary
Review: 112 Weddings
What came first, the documentary or the wedding video? Doug Block has been filming weddings for the best part of two decades to support his work as a documentarian. It’s well paid but Doug tries to...
Why We Ignore Male Terrorism: On the Santa Barbara shootings
The sounds of what I am told is a gun rally pound against the windows of my hotel room in Madison, Wisconsin, as I write. A man’s angry voice, distorted by amplification, and the sounds of a...
Shock Value: Hannibal’s Explosive Finale
Friday’s explosive Hannibal finale left viewers gasping for the next installment of this tight, smart, and creepy television drama, proving that the production team still has the power to shock...
Review: HBO’s “Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus”
What are these “Unstable Elements” and why are they lurking in Belarus? Are they housed in nuclear warheads misappropriated after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Is there a race against time to...
Review: Captain Phillips
Underhill, Vermont March 28th 2009. Captain Richard Phillips and his wife Andrea drive towards the airport surrounded by thousands of cars and trucks going about their daily business. Their...
Repeating Prop 8: California’s Vote on Transgender Rights
In 2008, while much of the United States celebrated President Obama’s victory and a historic moment for the United States, California progressives reeled from the successful passage of Proposition...
LFF 2013 Dispatch 3: The Sacrament, Good Ol’ Freda, New World, The Congress
Masquerading as a “Vice” magazine documentary, Ti West’s latest film, “The Sacrament” makes chilling use of immersionist journalism to reimagine the “Jonestown Massacre” as a...
London Film Festival 2013 Dispatch 1: The Sarnos-A Life In Dirty Movies, The Bounceback, Blackwood, Drones.
“The Sarnos--A Life In Dirty Movies” isn’t really about dirty movies at all. The filmmakers have obviously learned a trick or two from their subject Joe Sarno on how to sell a film. As the...
Dull and Amazingly Racist: Joss Whedon’s Agents of SHIELD
Last week on Agents of SHIELD: An angry Black man threatens to blow up a train station full of innocent people. This week: A mysterious explosive device is found inside an oddly young 'Incan pyramid'...