Archive for the ‘movies & television’ category

Texas Ranch House? Are you insane?

May 11th, 2006

We just finished watching the PBS program Texas Ranch House which is a mini-series that attempts to teach a little history about ranch-era Texas by dressing a bunch of volunteers in frontier costumes and transporting them “back in time” to 1867 to run a ranch and herd cattle and see how long they can put [...]

Superman Returns

May 2nd, 2006

Please, please, please let it be as good as the trailers.

Those TV guide blurb writers are getting lazy

April 4th, 2006

Michael Knight and his high-tech, intelligent car thwart evil. Come. ON. How lazy can you get? They might as well just write “The one where the good guys get the bad guys” or “Michael Knight uses his fabulous, puffy hair and leather jacket to put the moves on the cute blonde girl.”

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

November 22nd, 2005

To everyone with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in their Netflix queue with Availability showing “Long Wait”. It’s my fault. I won’t be sending it back until Friday. Sorry. But it’ll be on ABC Thursday night. I’ve also got A Charlie Brown Christmas. I know. I suck.

PBS Kids Sprout

September 30th, 2005

It’s the new PBS Kids network that DirectTV just switched to. Bye-bye PBS Kids, hello Sprout! Here’s what’s different: most of the shows are now 15 minutes instead of 30 which means you only get one episode of Thomas the Train or Dragon Tales instead of two each segment. And the cynical part of me [...]

Excellent cinematic experience

August 3rd, 2005

Here’s an excellent cinematic experience: watch Yojimbo then Sanjuro and finally A Fistful of Dollars.

Episode III: Revenge of the Nerds

May 19th, 2005

A friend writes, “Went to the 12:01 showing last night. Gotta say, not a whole lot of women there. And they say there are no single guys left.” I’m seeing it tonight.

Nostalgia exploitation has jumped the shark

March 28th, 2005

I’d like to take just a brief moment to declare, in no uncertain terms, as a member of the generation that nostalgia exploitation shows like “Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork and Mindy” (airing on NBC next week) are aimed at: I do not care about what happened behind the scenes of a [...]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program…

August 29th, 2004

The Summer Olympics have concluded. Once again, athleticism, sportsmanship, and international good will, in my opinion, just barely edged out rampant commercialism and greed. Will the Olympics jump the shark? Maybe, but I don’t think it’s happened yet. While watching the closing ceremony, I wished one of the athletes would have called out the media [...]

Bob, Katie… shut it!

August 13th, 2004

So, I’m trying to enjoy the opening ceremonies of the Olympics tonight. I’m trying (trying) to see beyond the rampant commercialization and enjoy it in the noble spirit it was intended. But whenever it gets interesting, when a nice number starts with the dancing and the singing and the music and the lasers, can I [...]