“Parenthood” (9 p.m. Central Tuesdays, NBC) starts Season 4 with a combination of a pitch-perfect life threshold yarn (Haddie goes off to college), a funny family-dynamic oddity (Crosby finds his son praying) and a believable issue that you don’t see explored too often on TV (Julia is finding it hard to love her adopted son).
Ah, fall TV. And, in a nice old-school twist, the Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Preview issue highlighted a single show on its cover rather than using a collage (the featured show: “Homeland,” which seems worthy, although I’ve never seen it). The fall lineup isn’t particularly deep this year, but it’s pretty respectable at the top. […]
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s offhand mention of the Clone Wars in “Star Wars” set off years of speculation that was finally, officially brought to rest with 2002’s “Attack of the Clones.” But it’s easy to forget that Timothy Zahn tackled the idea of clones in 1992’s “Dark Force Rising,” the second book of the Thrawn trilogy.
“Friends with Kids” (now on DVD), one of those movies with a premise much better than its execution, has a great jumping-off point: Pals Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt, who also wrote and directed) and Jason (Adam Scott of “Parks and Recreation”) are happily single, whereas their married friends with kids (Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, and Maya […]
“The Possession” doesn’t stand apart from its possession/exorcism genre brethren in any obvious way. It’s not even the first movie of this kind to be based on a true story. And the situation gets more murky considering that “The Apparition” is also in theaters now; I had to remind myself of the name of the movie […]
I was able to find last year’s 20th anniversary edition of “Heir to the Empire” for about six bucks, so it gave me a perfect excuse to re-read it. I wrote about my memories surrounding the book last year, so for this post I’ll dig more into my impressions from re-reading it.
As any fourth-grade teacher will tell you, kids are a direct reflection of their parents. On the other hand, it’s too simple to take all the blame or credit away from the child. “Hick,” recently released on DVD, springs from the question: What if a child had a drunk and irresponsible mother and father — would she […]
Ostensibly the story of a teenager (Anna Paquin) seeking justice for a woman killed in a bus accident that she feels partly responsible for, “Margaret” (2011) evolves into an immersive treatise on people’s inherent inability to relate to one another and recognize the ways they can make other people miserable. It plays wonderfully as a DVD rental, […]
John Jackson Miller, a historian and expert in Earth governments, has carved out a fascinating history of the Lost Tribe of the Sith in his compendium of nine novellas, “Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories.” The first eight were published as e-books (a format I’ve been slow to embrace, because I like holding […]
With the announcement of the engagement of Avril Lavigne and Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, an important discussion broke out at work: Which is the worse musician? To me, the answer is obvious, and it insults the intelligence of anyone who’s ever listened to music to even consider this a worthy debate. Lavigne is a genuinely good pop singer, […]