The Family Stone
December 7, 2005
The Family Stone (2005) belongs to the eccentric family comedy sub-genre where a straight-laced protagonist that the audience can identify with meets a clan of lovable oddballs usually in the context of a holiday setting (see Home for the Holidays, Pieces...
Unfaithfully Yours
December 6, 2005
Unfaithfully Yours (1948) is based on a short story called “Symphony Story” that writer/producer/director Preston Sturges wrote in 1933. At the time, he hoped it would be his directorial debut but the studios turned him down. In 1948, after many box...
Dead Like Me: Season 2
December 5, 2005
Dead Like Me (2004) is yet another example of a TV show cut down in its prime. MGM and the show’s creator, Bryan Fuller, butted heads over creative differences and this led to his departure during the first season. The show survived with very little...
Are We There Yet?
December 4, 2005
There seems to be a disease going around big action heroes at the moment. First it was Vin Diesel, who felt the need to soil himself in the kiddie comedy, The Pacifier (not literally, although that might have improved things somewhat), and now Ice Cube,...
Bill & Ted’s Most Excellent Collection
December 2, 2005
Before The Matrix movies transformed Keanu Reeves into an international movie star, his biggest contribution to the popular culture zeitgeist was Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). It is a charming little movie about two surfer dudes who travel...
Hitch
December 2, 2005
After such pumped-up marathons like Ali and I, Robot perhaps it’s no big surprise that Will Smith decided to take it easy in a nice romantic comedy for a change as a New York cupid who spends his time getting unattractive men to know what women...
Man of the House
December 1, 2005
Gruff Texas Ranger Tommy Lee Jones winds up babysitting five cheerleaders when they witness a murder. Shenanigans ensue. Pre-Men in Black, if you mentioned that Tommy Lee Jones was about to take a dip in the comedy pool you might have caused a friend...
Scrubs: Season 1
November 23, 2005
Scrubs is a medical comedy about a group of new interns who are adjusting to the demands of working on the front lines of a busy hospital. There’s J.D. (Braff), the idealistic one who also narrates the show, Turk (Faison), the cocky surgical intern...
Team America – World Police: Uncensored and Unrated
November 16, 2005
Matt Stone and Trey Parker are among some of the most clever and most savage satirists working today. Every week on their crudely animated TV show, South Park, they skewer sacred cows like religion, politics and dominant figures in popular culture. Their...
O.C. and Stiggs
November 15, 2005
After Popeye (1980), Robert Altman had effectively alienated himself from most of the Hollywood studios and took to adapting stage plays for the big screen through independent financing. In the early ‘80s, National Lampoon magazine published stories...
