Posts Tagged ‘dysfunctional family’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Mothering Sunday,” “Petite Maman” & “All My Puny Sorrows”

  MOTHERING SUNDAY (Sony Classics – Nov 19):  Eva Husson’s film, adapted by Alice Birch from a Graham Swift novel, has many of the rote trappings of prestige costume drama.  We’re back in the English co...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Toronto Film Festival Reviews

  This was a Toronto Film Festival unlike any other, and not just because I “attended” it from the laptop in my house.  Toronto has become an important stop on the road to the Academy Awards, with 9 of the pas...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “If Beale Street Could Talk” & “Ben Is Back”

  IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna – November 30):  Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight received a rapturous standing ovation at its Toronto premiere, and it’s unquestionably a beautiful piece of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Succession”

  The most tantalizing question of the Summer 2018 TV season is whether Jesse Armstrong, the creator of HBO’s slow-boil triumph SUCCESSION, knew what he was doing all along, or if the first 3-4 episodes were as uncer...
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 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 Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Damsel” & “Puzzle”

  DAMSEL (no distrib):  A hipster representation of comedy rather than anything comic itself.  Written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, whose previous work includes the similarly film festival-targeted Kumiko, 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
 

 

 

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
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “9JKL”

  9JKL:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We usually do actors the favor of evaluating their work on a project separately from the quality of the project itself, willing to take their performances on their ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Death of Stalin,” “I, Tonya” & “Kodachrome”

  KODACHROME (no distrib):  AKA that page of the indie movie playbook marked “Dysfunctional Family Road Trip To Redemption.”  Jonathan Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You) wrote the script, and it has his nove...
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: “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 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 Pilot + 1 Review: “The Family”

  THE FAMILY:  Sunday 9PM on ABC Previously… on THE FAMILY:  Ten years after his disappearance and presumed death, a now-teen Adam Warren (Liam James) appears, freshly escaped from what he describes as a decade spe...
by Mitch Salem