All 22 episodes of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Season 6 (2001-02), ranked
TV review: “Buffy” mostly abandons metaphors and goes for the straight-ahead drama in its penultimate TV season.
Author: John Hansen
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘Young Jedi Knights’ books (1995-98) (Book reviews)
On the heels of the excellent “Clone Wars” four-parter featuring younglings Byph, Gungi, Ganodi, Zatt, Petro and Katooni, I decided to finally dive into Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta’s 14-book “Young Jedi Knights” series that ran […]
Tarantino fans will likely love everything about ‘Django Unchained’ (Movie review)
I’m not naturally inclined to see a Quentin Tarantino film, but a couple of friends’ excitement about “Django Unchained,” combined with the generally positive reviews, got me to say “What the heck — I’ll give it a […]
John’s top 10 movies of 2012
Here are my picks for the top 10 movies of 2012: 1. “This Is 40” — Writer-director Judd Apatow’s first great film in five years, rather than being one long joke about getting older, instead chronicles a […]
Writer-director Judd Apatow bounces back nicely with ‘This Is 40’ (Movie review)
I have to admit that I’m kind of stunned to look at Judd Apatow’s resume and see he has only been a writer-director on four movies: The excellent “40 Year Old Virgin” (2005) and “Knocked […]
John’s top 10 TV shows of 2012
Here are my top 10 TV shows of 2012: 1. “Parenthood” (Season 3-4, NBC) — I hate to have the same No. 1 two years in a row, but “Parenthood” — the only current series where having a […]
A look back at ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ screenwriter Michael Arndt’s ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ (2006) (Movie review)
Michael Arndt will join a select group when he writes “Star Wars: Episode VII,” slated for a 2015 release. Although there are four previous “Star Wars” movie writers among the six episodes, only two of […]
John’s top 10 ‘Star Wars’ novelists (Book commentary)
I’ve been doing occasional “Star Wars Flashback” entries, but I thought I’d take a break here and give a rundown of my top 10 “Star Wars” novelists. For geeks like me, it might provide a […]
A couple of quirky love stories: ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ and ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ (Movie reviews)
Two stylized films recently released on DVD take unconventional approaches to love stories. In both cases, the ambition slightly outstrips the execution, but both “Safety Not Guaranteed” and “Moonrise Kingdom” held my attention and are worth a rental. The […]
‘Buffy’ Season 9 titles picking up momentum with mix of old and new (Comic books commentary)
There are no spinoff TV series, movies or books, but almost nine years after “Angel” aired its final episode, the Buffyverse is thriving in comics. In fact, there are currently four titles going under the Season […]