The Muppet Show: Season 3
May 30, 2008
By Season 3, The Muppet Show was at the peak of its powers with its format firmly in place and a wide variety of celebrity guests from all genres of the entertainment industry. For example, Saturday Night Live regular Gilda Radnor guest hosts one episode...
Enchanted
April 14, 2008
Essentially a reworking of Disney’s animated takes on Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (while also referencing many others), Enchanted was a surprise hit in 2007 thanks in large part to the irrepressible charms of its leading lady, Amy Adams. Part animated...
Juno: Two-Disc Special Edition
April 14, 2008
Juno was The Little Miss Sunshine (2006) of 2007 – the little independent film that could. Once the studio realized that it had a successful crowd-pleaser on its hands, the film was promoted from the art-house circuit to the multiplexes. Actress Ellen...
Dan in Real Life
March 12, 2008
While it’s true that many “serious” actors try their hand at comedy (or, in the case of Alec Baldwin and Robert De Niro, make a career out of it), it is equally true that many comedic actors want to be taken seriously. Some, like Bill Murray and...
Blue State
February 22, 2008
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And with those iconic words, spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong, we landed on the Moon. It was the first time that a human being visited another world. Documentary In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)...
Margot at the Wedding
February 8, 2008
With The Squid and the Whale (2005), filmmaker Noah Baumbach reinvented himself by finally discarding the comparisons to Woody Allen that followed his early films (Kicking & Screaming, Mr. Jealousy) and produced a more nuanced, mature film with acerbic...
King of California
February 5, 2008
Hoping to replicate the overwhelming positive critical response he received for his performance in Wonder Boys (2000), Michael Douglas plays another quirky outsider in King of California (2007). Despite being produced by Alexander Payne (Sideways), the...
Sex and Breakfast
January 31, 2008
Sex and Breakfast (2007) is about two twentysomething couples going through the usual relationship problems. Miles Brandman’s film examines how these couples communicate (and also how they fail to do so) we each other. Ellis (Becker) and Renee (Dushku)...
Suburban Girl
January 28, 2008
How does an adaptation of best-selling book The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin, go direct-to-video? The obvious answer is that the film isn’t that good and that it was rightly relegated to obscurity....
Eagle vs Shark
January 23, 2008
Eagle vs Shark (2007) is reminiscent of quirky films like Harold and Maude (1971) and blends together the sensibilities of Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) with oddball outsiders that lead colourful lives. Lily (Horsley)...
