‘True Detective’ Season 1 (2014) an elite short-form mystery
Throwback Thursday (TV review): “True Detective” stands as the decade’s elite example of the short-form sleuth series.
Mystery
‘True Detective’ Season 1 (2014) an elite short-form mystery
A second opinion: ‘Us’ is a boring piece of beautiful arthouse horror (Movie review)
Writer-director Jordan Peele’s “Us” reminds me of Alex Garland’s “Annihilation” (2018). Both are followups to a breakthrough piece of chilling sci-fi/horror that I and everybody else loved – “Get Out” (2017) in Peele’s case and […]
First episode impressions: ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 (TV review)
If the first episode is any indication, “Big Little Lies’ ” second season (9 p.m. Eastern Sundays on HBO) lacks the zest of the first but has so much momentum in the wake of the […]
‘Slasher’ Season 3 cracks code on slasher TV narrative
TV review: The present-day narrative of “Slasher: Solstice” is tense and tight. But the show is also peppered with flashbacks where we learn about motives.
Mamet makes a reader work in crime novel ‘Chicago’ (2018)
Mamet Monday (Book review): Mamet makes a reader work, but it’s worth the effort in this 1920s crime novel.
‘Happy Death Day 2U’ wrings more fun out of ‘repeated day’ premise with clever genre-hop (Movie review)
It’s accurate to call “Happy Death Day 2U” a dumb movie, and accurate to call it a smart movie. It seems as if Blumhouse studio asked writer-director Christopher Landon (who also directed the 2017 original, […]
‘The Verdict’ (1982) a masterwork of the courtroom drama form
Mamet Monday (Movie review): This Mamet-Lumet collaboration is a masterful courtroom drama and redemption story.
Preston & Child’s ‘Verses for the Dead’ explores southern Florida and a puzzling string of deaths (Book review)
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child give Agent Pendergast a fresh start of sorts in his 18th novel, “Verses for the Dead” (December, hardcover). Series like the Constance trilogy and the Helen trilogy are conclusions to […]
‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ (1992) is searing, quotable and darkly funny
Mamet Monday (Movie review): Mamet pens a searing yet funny look at cutthroat white-collar workers.