Nothing much happens this week on Sons of Anarchy, and yet, I can’t help but feel like this is the best episode of the season so far. As things plummet further into darkness, the show gains a surety of narrative that it hasn’t had in a long time. Now that there is no question as…
More than it does anything else, this week’s episode of Boardwalk Empire confirms the show’s storytelling method, remaining entrenched in the series slow (we might instead say “steady”), novelistic approach to telling its story through the accumulation of character-driven scenes, rather than necessarily through developments of the plot. There are plot developments as well, of…
Usually when I revisit a show, I begin to find flaws. It happens every time. Nearly every show feels perfect the first time around, but when you watch it again, you're paying more attention to the details, good and bad. The first time I watched Once the musical, I was putty in their Irish hands.…
SPOILERS AHEAD! Breaking Bad's brilliant final season deserves all the accolades coming to it (see our Emmy predictions here), but why? Here are 11 reasons why Breaking Bad should win at the Emmys. So Hanks finds out about Walt in the premiere, but instead of lashing out, in true Heisenberg style Walt says: When Hank…
With this week’s episode, “Toil and Till,” Sons of Anarchy makes the first compelling case for its unending, unrelenting depiction of misery of the season. In fact, I can’t remember the time I was as invested in or even interested by an episode of this show. Considering where I stood last week, we’ll consider this…
Interpol was a band I always stated was a staple of the "My First Indie Rock" song collection. It was the gateway to the more obscure and weird and experimental artists all along the blogosphere. However, the band hasn't been as synonymous with that as it used to be. Artists like Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey, Twenty-One Pilots,…
That’s much more like it. “The Good Listener” may be the second episode of the season, but it feels like the first. Certainly it’s the first real indication this season that Terence Winter does, in fact, have some kind of endgame in mind that he’s working toward. This week also provides significantly more, and better,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRmuM08JC-w#t=296 The last time I saw Death Cab in concert was in 2012 during the summer before my Freshman year of college. When my friend and I got to the Wellmont in Montclair, there was a crowd of about 20 crowding the middle of the pit. So, we had two choices: stand on the left…
When Kenneth Lonergan's slacker drama first appeared in New York in 1996, it was deemed a revelation. A true eye-opener into the world of early twenty-somethings in a much grittier New York City than we know today. A strange and fascinating thing has happened with the Steppenwolf revival currently playing the Cort Theatre: the play…
Summer blockbusters rarely make a huge impression at the Oscars. Usually it's a Visual Effects nomination, or something for sound, but even those are saved for more Oscar friendly movies. For example, The Avengers became the 3rd highest grossing film last year, however at the Oscars they were delegated a single nomination for Best Visual Effects. Now,…
