tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-229215252012-02-14T23:54:01.762-06:00Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comBlogger4891100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-13587313121737960682012-02-13T16:30:00.002-06:002012-02-13T16:41:25.100-06:00

Laurence R. Harvey & Ashlynn Yennie Writer/director Tom Six is one hell of a salesman. Peddling his particular brand of wares is no small feat, and peddling them successfully, even more so. I was rather on the fence about his controversial debut, The Human Centipede [First Sequence], admiring parts of it more than the whole, but with this follow-up he’s accomplished what few before him have

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-21669338730625687562012-02-08T17:24:00.001-06:002012-02-14T23:54:01.776-06:00

As recently as 2009, several years into the run of the new series of Doctor Who, “The Caves of Androzani” was voted the #1 Who story of all time by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine – a dubious distinction for a show about time travel to be sure, but still noteworthy when discussing this 28-year old piece of television. Surely “Androzani” should have been bested by “Blink,” or maybe the “Human

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-12751007736141340172012-02-03T14:11:00.000-06:002012-02-14T23:52:51.400-06:00

Possibly long overdue for a DVD release is the first season adventure, “The Sensorites.” “Long overdue” because the titular alien race were the influence for the prominently featured new series race, the Ood; “Possibly” because the Sensorites aren’t particularly fascinating figures, and Ood fanatics (surely you exist?) dying to get a peek at the mysterious species’ origins, are likely to come

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-9122160478396535592012-02-02T15:21:00.000-06:002012-02-04T09:27:59.549-06:00

This is really quite lovely. If you're a Three's Company fan - and you know who you are - you're gonna go ape for these videos.                                      

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-76182285341262088912012-01-31T13:16:00.000-06:002012-02-07T00:11:38.998-06:00

Oh, how I'd love to get behind this one, if not for the fact that the person who put it together was obviously stoned (in light of this, who knows if the facts are even correct?). Bad spelling, awful grammar, and terrible punctuation. This is an online nightmare. What's most amazing is that marijuana is spelled correctly not once, but twice! Anytime these little placards fail to get the basics

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-67383592986303755212012-01-25T14:40:00.000-06:002012-01-25T15:22:24.867-06:00

My history with Godzilla (1954) is all but non-existent. The last time I saw the film – the American version known as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, starring Raymond Burr – I was probably nine and it was on TV on a Saturday afternoon. So far back was this, and so ignorant was I, that upon receiving this Blu-ray, I was mildly shocked to learn that the movie was in black and white, and not

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-63172539552523776642012-01-22T21:39:00.001-06:002012-01-22T21:57:19.032-06:00

If you’ve followed my classic Doctor Who ramblings over the years, you’ll know that I make no secret of my intense feelings for the Philip Hinchcliffe-produced and Robert Holmes-script edited era, particularly the latter two seasons, which more or less amount to the greatest straight run of stories the series ever produced. But the time has finally come to address the “more or less” part,

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-60380609085689241802012-01-14T14:33:00.000-06:002012-01-16T02:24:29.135-06:00

In recent times, there seems to be a vague movement of sorts to reappraise “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” by not judging it on its technical merits, but rather on everything else. Fair enough, and this should be the case with many a classic Doctor Who story. But there’s also something about having the word “dinosaurs” in the title of anything that leads to preconceived notions of what you’re in

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-12023931341205128592012-01-09T23:42:00.004-06:002012-01-09T23:45:51.180-06:00

Everyone’s told the occasional white lie in the interest of impressing someone, be it a love interest, a boss or a friend. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is a sitcom built around the premise, and one man’s inability to just, for once, tell the fucking truth. David Cross plays that man, whose name, as you may have guessed, is Todd Margaret, and the title of the show is as

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-87552447593931024062011-12-06T11:12:00.004-06:002011-12-06T11:15:50.097-06:00

A few months back, I wasn’t terribly happy with Season Six based on its first half, but was content to wait for the second half before making a final decision. So here we are, and while the second half of the season turned out to not necessarily be any better than the first half, it wasn’t any worse, either. It’s both as dazzling and problematic as the first half. Half this, half that. Can we

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-27504831844925881952011-11-16T10:00:00.000-06:002012-01-14T16:28:53.409-06:00

Most of the sci-fi shows you enjoy today owe some kind of debt to Farscape. On the flip side, most of the sci-fi shows you grew up on, Farscape liberally stole bits and pieces from. It’s quite possibly the most unoriginally original series ever made. Here’s a show that came along at a time when space opera wasn’t doing a whole lot of experimentation, and yet that’s almost exclusively what

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-65526277933681994692011-11-15T17:04:00.003-06:002012-01-14T14:52:14.765-06:00

"Colony in Space" is really only noteworthy for one thing: It marked the first time the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) took a trip to another planet in the TARDIS since his exile to Earth at the start of his third life. He’s allowed to do this only at the behest of the Time Lords, who realize the Master (Roger Delgado) has stolen information on something called a Doomsday Weapon, and they quite rightly

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-57907443178828967892011-10-14T09:55:00.003-05:002011-10-14T09:57:56.125-05:00

At its most basic level, The Woman asks a straightforward question: Who’s the real monster, a cannibalistic mountain woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) or Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers), the sleazy small-town lawyer who captures and imprisons her? Even though the answer is choreographed early on, it’s how director Lucky McKee explores the idea as the picture moves forward that sells the concept.Cleek first

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-81950227467369145332011-10-05T12:11:00.007-05:002011-10-05T12:18:06.359-05:00

With the simultaneous Blu-ray releases of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, arguably the two jewels in the Quentin Tarantino crown, you can now own all of the filmmaker’s features on the high-def platter. Have the best been saved for last? Quite possibly. And if you’re of a certain age, there’s also a good chance you haven’t seen one or even both of them, which means you are in for some seriously

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-91778916794016248192011-10-03T10:44:00.002-05:002011-10-03T10:48:31.892-05:00

When John Hughes died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago at the age of 59, folks my age (I’ll be 40 soon) were understandably unnerved. Even though it had been some time since he’d created anything worthy of mass consumption, probably a dozen different projects bearing his name all but collectively define my generation. Hughes was the voice of angst-ridden ‘80s youth, and I dare say that no

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-70219875103237915682011-09-13T18:56:00.004-05:002011-09-13T19:03:05.997-05:00

As classic Doctor Who DVD releases go, few have had as much pre-release hype surrounding them as “Day of the Daleks.” The first teaser trailer for it appeared earlier this year, and since then, it’s been one of the most anticipated DVDs in the range – not because “Day of the Daleks” is on everyone’s “most wanted” list, but because 2 Entertain (and specifically Steve Broster) had created a

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-25790561108590322692011-08-18T14:17:00.004-05:002011-08-18T14:22:33.914-05:00

Any guy who’s ever spent any amount of time “appreciating” pornography has sooner or later found a particular actress who catches his lustful eye. What usually happens after that guy finds that girl is that he sets out to find more of her work, which is understandable, because that’s what we do with any artist we’ve come to appreciate. Whether or not pornographic actors should be considered

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-84992529124997407372011-08-15T16:28:00.011-05:002011-09-12T17:50:12.459-05:00

Here are just a few screencaps to whet your appetite for the upcoming "Day of the Daleks" Special Edition that hits R1 DVD on Sept. 13th.This is a CGI vision of the future. If the Controller fell out of his bedroom window and landed on the ground below, this is what the world might look like. Luckily, Steve Broster, who produced this SE, has chosen not to show us what the Controller's bedroom

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-16881505410562237092011-07-27T02:22:00.003-05:002011-07-27T02:26:40.811-05:00

Since they only represent the first half of a season, it’s difficult to give any kind of fair review to this block of seven episodes. They begin strong, with loads of promise, but then slowly peter away into utter mediocrity. At the end of the semi-revelatory seventh episode, it’s still only mid-season, so it’s entirely probable the series will redeem itself later this year in the final six

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-12130445267997388802011-07-27T02:17:00.002-05:002011-07-27T02:22:09.990-05:00

If you’re currently digging Torchwood: Miracle Day on Starz, and it’s your first exposure to Torchwood as a concept, then boy do I have a Blu-ray for you. This box set collects together all the episodes of Torchwood that were created prior to Miracle Day, so if you aren’t caught up and would like to delve into all that came before, buy the ticket and take this ride.Torchwood was designed to be

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-70910446224865556292011-06-22T01:13:00.003-05:002011-06-22T01:18:08.654-05:00

It’s been said by more than one person that Peter Davison didn’t “find” the Fifth Doctor until his final story, “The Caves of Androzani.” That is, of course, utter codswallop, but to those who do believe it, I point you in the direction of “Frontios,” which shows Davison giving one of the strongest performances of his tenure.The TARDIS has drifted into the far, far future and come upon the planet

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-59735131691453311812011-06-22T01:08:00.004-05:002011-06-22T01:13:14.783-05:00

On more than one occasion I’ve seen Louie described as depressing, and if it’s said by more than two people, maybe there’s some truth to it. I like to think of it as more along the lines of uncomfortable, but any way you slice it, it probably isn’t the kind of show destined for marathon viewings. Two or three episodes in a row are plenty for one day. But therein lies some of its genius, as this

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-29997245365932682682011-06-06T12:16:00.004-05:002011-06-06T12:24:08.121-05:00

Ultraviolence – the word, not the idea – was invented in 1962 when Anthony Burgess published his novel, A Clockwork Orange. While the book may have raised some eyebrows, reading about the atrocities perpetrated by teen thug Alex and his droogies was one thing; seeing them committed to the big screen by master cinema stylist Stanley Kubrick was quite another. Allegations of copycat crimes followed

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-65540984518436469742011-05-10T15:24:00.004-05:002011-05-10T15:29:07.533-05:00

This month sees a noteworthy pair of classic Who stories hitting the silver platter, including Jon Pertwee’s swansong, “Planet of the Spiders.” But before getting there, let’s first travel back to 1971.Though “Terror of the Autons” kicked off producer Barry Letts’s second season, it was the first story he had a solid hand in guiding. (The previous year had been crafted in large part by outgoing

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-8602719847045991052011-05-03T16:49:00.004-05:002011-05-04T01:21:09.913-05:00

Of the Season Two finale of Being Human, I wrote that it “sets up a third season that will either be brilliant or a disaster.” Well, I’m both sad and happy to report that it is neither. Much happened in the last two episodes of the second season – the Box Tunnel massacre led by Mitchell (Aidan Turner), the resurrection of Herrick (Jason Watkins), and most importantly, Annie (Lenora Crichlow)

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-2195165741385576982011-05-01T19:20:00.004-05:002011-05-01T19:29:02.742-05:00

Hey readers -If you've come here looking for recaps (or links to recaps) of Season Six of Doctor Who, I'm afraid to say that I won't be doing them regularly this season. Really, after writing up nearly every episode since the show first (re)started back in 2005, I need a good long break from doing it. If you've ever tried to recap a series on and on, year after year, it becomes a drag after a

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-75097152795519468062011-04-30T15:17:00.003-05:002011-04-30T15:20:59.243-05:00

Nobody can accuse HBO of not doing its part to shed light on the plight of New Orleans. They got behind Spike Lee and his mammoth documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, and have since financed a follow-up doc from Lee entitled If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise. The former painstakingly covered the days and months in New Orleans after Katrina, while the latter traced

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-2491066567223955452011-04-13T00:45:00.005-05:002011-04-13T00:49:25.016-05:00

Search far and wide through the back catalogue of classic Doctor Who and you’ll be hard pressed to come up with a double bill that’s as rewarding as “Kinda” and “Snakedance.” The former is not just one of the greatest Who stories of the 80s, but one of the best in the entire canon of the series. The latter is… well, it’s a damn fine sequel. Both tales were penned by a guy named Christopher Bailey

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-65300745391205272832011-04-06T10:41:00.005-05:002011-04-06T10:47:09.340-05:00

Here’s a box set that’s a bit of a TV on DVD anomaly: Most fans of the series haven’t yet had the opportunity to view these episodes. If you watch Friday Night Lights on NBC, and you’re thinking, “Hey, did I somehow manage to miss the fifth season?,” the answer is no, you didn’t. This block of 13 episodes won’t begin airing until later this month on network TV. They did, however, play on DirecTV

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-70710540510783482952011-03-29T02:18:00.002-05:002011-03-29T02:23:51.055-05:00

Let’s talk about not only the most important TV series you’re not watching, but also the most entertaining and rewarding. It’s called Treme, (pronounced Truh-MAY) and its first season aired on HBO last year, but hardly anybody tuned in, including, it must be admitted, the writer of this piece. Well, I did watch the first three episodes, and while I liked the idea of Treme, something about it

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-30426486302553849282011-03-23T11:57:00.002-05:002011-03-23T12:02:03.673-05:00

This month’s Doctor Who DVD offerings, from a storytelling standpoint, have virtually nothing in common. One is a contemporary earthbound tale about an invader from space, while the other takes place far in the future, on a ship taking a vast voyage across the stars. One is a nice looking color production from the 70s, and the other is a creaky black and white yarn from the 60s. One of them is

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-23831015745674862662011-03-02T15:25:00.003-06:002011-03-02T15:28:40.796-06:00

It behooves those of us who write about pop culture to occasionally come clean, and admit that a TV show or a movie has flummoxed us. ReBoot, for me, is one such concept. That I was felled by a Saturday morning cartoon isn’t something that sets easy with me, but I feel as though I have to state it upfront, as it’s the only way I can be sure that this review will make sense. Otherwise, long-time

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-51608746388379586462011-02-28T18:28:00.003-06:002011-02-28T18:33:44.176-06:00

It could be said that the most amazing thing about The Cable Guy is how largely ignored it was by domestic audiences and how shabbily it was treated by critics. What’s even more amazing, though, is how good of a film it really is, and how it’s aged extremely well over the past 15 years. Point two feeds point one, but never mind, you get the point.The movie is a dark comedy, and oh how I hate to

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-26651721715792604492011-02-28T18:08:00.004-06:002011-02-28T18:25:45.351-06:00

Man, 1982 was one hell of a year for movies. In doing some research for 48 Hrs., I came across a list of flicks released that year. Here are just some of the titles: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, First Blood, My Favorite Year, Night Shift, Pink Floyd: The Wall, and Poltergeist. Still not convinced? Try on Blade Runner, Porky’s, Sophie’s Choice, Star Trek II: The Wrath

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-55177529496724394502011-02-18T12:49:00.008-06:002011-02-18T12:55:49.543-06:00

In our celebrity-obsessed culture, it’s possible that All About Eve is more important than ever. Scratch that. How about it’s more entertaining than ever? It’s debatable whether Eve has ever been an important movie, at least outside of its place in film history, but the one thing it’s always been is entertaining. That this 60-year-old film can still amuse, enlighten, move and make us cackle in

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-82837257659036110092011-02-16T01:45:00.004-06:002011-02-16T01:50:28.699-06:00

Interesting tidbit about “The Mutants”: Salman Rushdie mentions it in his famously controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, although not by name, but rather by bringing up the Mutts from the story and offering up a few observations. Some fans have derided Rushdie’s brief commentary as misinterpreting the messages of the story, but that’s a debate for another forum. What’s noteworthy, though, is

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-75202895389163104002011-02-16T01:35:00.003-06:002011-02-16T01:44:35.836-06:00

For the first Christmas special of his era of Doctor Who, nobody can accuse Steven Moffat of playing it safe. That’s not to imply that he delivered a piece of holiday fare that’s in any way dangerous, but rather that he broke so far away from the types of stories that Russell T. Davies served up for the holiday season that some viewers may have found the resulting tale to be a tad disorientating.

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-37330574804694242452011-02-11T12:13:00.004-06:002011-02-11T12:18:44.841-06:00

Submitting yourself to either version of I Spit on Your Grave requires that you have a cast iron stomach. The original is one of the most notorious horror films in movie history (or at least it was back in the 80s), although I sometimes wonder if that has more to do with the infamous movie poster than the film itself. Further, I also wonder if either film is really deserving of the label “horror.

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-41036623570805407492011-02-08T17:06:00.009-06:002011-02-08T17:18:58.486-06:00

At this point, after five seasons (and change) of dazzling new Doctor Who, it’s almost difficult to remember how lean the years were for the show after its cancellation in 1989. If I really project myself back to that time period, it reminds me that I shouldn’t take the new series for granted, because it can’t last forever. For a young fan in his twenties, each passing year with no new Who began

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-75726052726867040712011-02-04T17:46:00.004-06:002011-02-04T17:50:34.186-06:00

To label Santa Sangre a mere horror film does it a great disservice, but ultimately that’s where it’ll end up filed nine times out of ten, if no other reason than because so much of its imagery is horrific. But then even, the label horrific does much of that imagery the same kind of disservice, because it’s also dreamy and beautiful. Clearly this is not an easy movie to describe, and that’s

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-22007963626314215562011-01-26T17:22:00.008-06:002011-01-26T22:20:51.876-06:00

By 1990, the ‘80s nighttime power soaps were on the way out, and new types of soapy television, like Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, were either on the air or on the horizon. Dynasty and Falcon Crest were gone, Knots Landing only had a couple seasons left in it, and the one that started them all, Dallas, was kicking off its final season. What on earth was there left for this show to do

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-71657481090696504322011-01-19T17:30:00.005-06:002011-01-19T17:43:22.473-06:00

TV history is littered with the bones and carcasses of shows killed off before their time. In fact, if we were discussing living, breathing creatures rather than little collections of filmed or videotaped entertainment, we’d have long since moved past the term epidemic. On the flip side, there are plenty of shows that lived for too long; fare that far outlives its usefulness, while so many other

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-22651621718275953132011-01-13T17:55:00.006-06:002011-01-13T17:59:33.496-06:00

Here’s a show that’s immensely frustrating to review. No matter how tied it is to the current series of Doctor Who, there’s no getting around the fact that its target audience is pre-teen and younger, and that’s a demographic of which I’m simply not a part. Nor do I have a kid that age in the house to gauge a reaction through. I’m pretty sure that if the show had existed when I was 10, I’d have

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-23167660545700888832011-01-11T21:46:00.003-06:002011-01-11T21:52:00.240-06:00

Before moving on to reviewing these serials, it’s worth taking some time out to talk about where the classic Doctor Who video range is at the moment here in the States. For the first time in all the years these DVDs have been coming out, we’re finally getting releases very close to day-and-date with the U.K. “Meglos” is the first such release in the U.S.; the release date for it is January 11th

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-15856925697533150582011-01-05T16:56:00.004-06:002011-01-05T17:00:25.726-06:00

Sometimes it isn’t a terrible idea to check back in with a series you used to not care for, and haven’t seen in many years. I grew up watching a fair amount of reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, mostly because back in the good ol’ days, we only had, like, four channels. But I never liked the show as its golly-gee-shucks cornball country antics were never to my taste. It was just filler between The

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-81589466238790695232010-12-15T14:25:00.002-06:002010-12-15T14:27:52.691-06:00

Sifting through the elaborate contents of this box set revealed something important about Johnny Carson: he never changed. Onscreen, Carson was the same guy in the ‘60s that he was when he retired in the ‘90s. You need look no further than this set to see what David Letterman (who makes several appearances on here) was like back in the ‘80s – quirky and amiable – versus the grumpy old man he is

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-45713081774042904102010-12-14T23:40:00.004-06:002010-12-14T23:43:29.327-06:00

In the past, I’ve struggled with Californication. Not over its quality, as much as the fact that I didn’t find it particularly funny, even though it was clearly aiming for laughs. Nor did I find David Duchovny’s Hank Moody to be terribly engaging as a central character. So it was only out of a sense of duty, or maybe habit, that I agreed to review Season Three of this depraved ongoing tapestry.

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-4467637595550196862010-12-14T23:35:00.003-06:002010-12-14T23:39:30.006-06:00

It’s always a little sad when you come to the end of the road for a series you’ve been watching via TV on DVD. Probably less sad than the end of a series you’ve been dedicated to over the years on broadcast TV, because the amount of time and thought invested isn’t quite the same, but sad nevertheless. For me, thirtysomething has been one of the great pleasures of the last year and a half, and

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-87670568730748853582010-11-30T11:54:00.006-06:002011-01-20T17:50:26.637-06:00

Lisa Cholodenko isn’t a household name as writer/directors go, but that may change somewhat after her latest film, The Kids Are All Right, which was released smack in the middle of the summer, and recently came out on DVD and Blu-ray. The movie features three of our greatest actors – Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo – doing some of the most astute work of their careers. Expect the

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-40257040723100852992010-11-25T10:28:00.005-06:002010-11-25T10:32:35.407-06:00

Bringing Sherlock Holmes squarely into 2010 sounds too gimmicky to work, but the fact that it does may be only part of the reason Sherlock is such a surprise. The 19th century iconography the Holmes concept is mired in only exists because that’s when Arthur Conan Doyle wrote all those stories. As far as he was concerned, he was telling tales set in the present. It takes someone who really gets

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-76768713439194744812010-11-22T15:02:00.004-06:002011-01-20T17:50:26.641-06:00

It’s important to understand the circumstances under which I interviewed Piers Wenger, one of the executive producers of the current era of Doctor Who, and it’s equally important to understand how I dropped the ball on this interview, which is a huge shame, because anyone who knows me knows I’m a freak for Doctor Who, and I’ve no excuse for botching this one.Except that I do.Well, maybe not an

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-79245315792646594402010-11-10T00:25:00.002-06:002010-11-10T00:44:22.036-06:00

Still haven’t gotten around to checking out Doctor Who, have you? Don’t let the Season Five label dissuade you: This is a great place to get in on the action without feeling like you’re totally out of the loop. It features a new Doctor (Matt Smith), a new companion (Karen Gillan), a new head writer (Steven Moffat), and, most importantly, a new storyline that’s only barely connected to the four

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-12944414759494437222010-11-10T00:15:00.003-06:002010-11-10T00:20:00.175-06:00

We’re pretty much dragging the bottom of the Cyber-barrel this month, folks. With “Revenge of the Cybermen” and “Silver Nemesis,” all of the Cybermen stories (save for William Hartnell’s final adventure, “The Tenth Planet,” which is missing its fourth episode) are now available on DVD in some form or another. Despite being the Doctor’s third most popular enemy – after the Daleks and the Master –

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-83753005170361230202010-11-05T12:48:00.003-05:002010-11-05T12:53:08.698-05:00

The critical blurb on the cover of Damned by Dawn is difficult to miss: “Sick of waiting for Evil Dead 4? Check out Damned by Dawn.” It’s credited to a website called Quiet Earth. As is all too often the case, this blurb was taken out of context. A few clicks of the keyboard lead to a short article that, at least when it was written, reveals nobody at Quiet Earth had seen the movie, and they’d

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-21939051781571893892010-11-03T15:23:00.004-05:002010-11-03T15:28:14.686-05:00

Given that Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall fame is not only one of the writers, but also one of the stars of Slings and Arrows, one would think it would be much funnier than it is. It exists somewhere in that netherworld between drama and comedy though (as much TV seems to these days), but labeling it a dramedy is useless, because that doesn’t really tell you anything other than you might laugh

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-21350643049790378982010-10-28T18:22:00.009-05:002010-10-28T19:33:53.456-05:00

Having neglected Vinyl Candy on their second release, Land, it seemed a good time to write a few words about their latest effort, the exceptional The Dirty Third. Some new bands release one great album and then never capture that magic again. Others take a little time through experimentation via several releases to find their voice, and to create that first great album, and I think that’s where

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-59569328917166441532010-10-19T18:44:00.003-05:002010-10-19T18:47:02.618-05:00

The thing with Wallander is that it creates a wholly believable world which does not exist. It’s set and filmed in a very real locality – Ystad, Sweden – but the real Ystad isn’t the evil, dangerous place of these films. Oh well. Ystad may as well be another world as far as I’m concerned, and so I don’t let the facts get in the way of the fiction. When the fiction is as interesting as it is in

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-11401365927190715172010-10-19T18:25:00.004-05:002010-10-19T18:36:32.269-05:00

It says quite a bit about America when Two and a Half Men is the most popular sitcom on TV. It’s a foul, misogynistic, relentlessly immoral program. It also happens to be very, very funny. For all of the many cries of longing for a different, more innocent time, the truth is this country has loved this trashy show for seven years now, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that love slowing

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-35028058018002514552010-10-12T18:21:00.004-05:002010-10-12T18:26:21.550-05:00

The first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was released on DVD in September of 2002, and now the seventh and final season has been released in October of 2010, which means it took Fox a longer period of time to get the entire series out on DVD than it was actually on the air back in the 70s. Of course, the important thing is that it’s now all out there, thank goodness, but it goes to show how

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-39120081706486392642010-10-08T10:09:00.005-05:002010-10-08T10:18:22.230-05:00

There’s been quite a bit written about The Human Centipede in the past six or so months. If you’re not familiar with the film’s concept, congratulations! Chances are you still have a modicum of decency about you. This is becoming a rarer and rarer commodity. Or maybe you live in a Red State. Either way, before going any further, it behooves me to explain what it’s all about. A mad scientist named

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-84204446843224059432010-10-06T01:30:00.004-05:002010-10-06T16:51:28.393-05:00

Hang on a sec! Isn’t there a new bloke playing the Doctor? Yes, there is. Didn’t David Tennant’s era end at New Year’s? Yes, it did. Then wha--? This is old material that predates his finale. Further, it isn’t even the last David Tennant Doctor stuff that’s going to be hitting DVD. No, the final material Tennant recorded as the Doctor will hit shelves in January when the third season of The Sarah

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-31295383812069064142010-10-06T01:26:00.003-05:002010-10-06T01:30:02.484-05:00

It’s been a while since a sci-fi series left me with as bad a taste in my mouth as Caprica has, so much so that I became pretty juvenile just a few episodes in and started referring to it as Crapica. This shockingly inept prequel to Battlestar Galactica is firing on so few cylinders it’s difficult to even know where to begin discussing it. Well, for starters, it’s worth mentioning that the 90-

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-51060121500217628802010-10-01T10:05:00.007-05:002010-10-01T14:49:18.265-05:00

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is a real curiosity piece, as well as something of a minor holy grail for film buffs in the U.S. Probably the last time it was available here in the States was in the late 80s or early 90s on VHS. Thanks to the fine folks at Criterion, that’s no longer the case. Like many people, I became familiar with it due to its soundtrack, which wasn’t quite as difficult to find,

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-28318909358309792572010-09-28T17:00:00.003-05:002010-09-28T17:05:40.411-05:00

It’s mildly irritating that The Big Bang Theory has become one of the biggest shows on network TV. This thing is a ratings behemoth at this point. It seemed so much cooler when not as many people were watching it (yet enough to keep it on the air). The misfit, socially outcast central characters made a kind of sense in that context. Now they’re seemingly as powerful as the superheroes they

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-36822463675791145182010-09-21T16:00:00.002-05:002010-09-21T16:06:21.330-05:00

Now that’s more like it. I’m referring, of course, to the sophomore season of Being Human. Of its freshman season I wrote, “It doesn’t always reach as far it feels it potentially could” and “it’d probably be best to cut Being Human a little slack at this early stage of the game.” With its setup out of the way, the series is now taking long, deep breaths, and exhaling a fantastically entertaining

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-65160724546972894332010-09-14T16:08:00.003-05:002010-09-14T16:12:11.476-05:00

Once upon a time (like two years ago) Skins generated a huge amount of controversy, and probably with good reason. Any show featuring oversexed, drugged-up teenage protagonists will tend to garner negative press. But Skins hung in there, and kept on doing what it does, and at the time of writing it’s got four seasons under its belt, and has been commissioned for another two. MTV is also getting

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-19040874911800049592010-09-14T16:04:00.005-05:002010-09-14T16:13:16.409-05:00

Detective Jane Tennison is arguably Helen Mirren’s most famous role, and given the amount of time she invested in the part – roughly 25 hours over the course of 15 years – that shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Then again, what’s 25 hours in the grand scheme of TV? That’s only a few hours longer than one season of a typical American drama. Doesn’t sound like all that much, does it? Then it must

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-79143114276253713842010-09-07T17:49:00.003-05:002010-09-07T17:54:02.874-05:00

There’s nothing wrong with “The Creature from the Pit” that a couple pints of ale (or whatever your choice of poison may be) can’t fix. Yet another entry from the Douglas Adams script-edited season of Doctor Who, whatever the story lacks in the plot mechanics department, it more than makes up for with its cracking wordplay. The jokes fly fast and furious in this one, which at one time was

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-11194439351171912252010-09-07T17:45:00.004-05:002010-09-07T17:49:36.240-05:00

Few long-running TV series manage to keep moving forward without the occasional bad idea – the kind where viewers collectively scratch their heads, and in unison sigh, “What were they thinking?” Given how long Doctor Who has been on the air in its various incarnations, it’s probably had more than its fair share of half-baked notions. If one were to make a list of such grievances, it seems likely

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-9991716050147909202010-09-03T14:16:00.005-05:002010-09-03T14:21:47.135-05:00

Long before Irish director Neil Jordan made popular movies (Interview with the Vampire), or important movies (Michael Collins), or movies that were both (The Crying Game), he made some little movies that not many people saw. In recent years, he’s again returned to making little movies that not many people see, and yet there’s a difference between what he’s doing now, and what he was doing way

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-13685566138123176182010-09-03T14:08:00.005-05:002010-09-03T14:21:47.144-05:00

HandMade Films is a production and distribution company that started out as a venture between George Harrison and his business partner Denis O’Brien. Initially it was put together simply to help Monty Python finance Life of Brian, but after the success of that film, HandMade kept going and going. The company has gone through numerous changes over the years, and these days their output isn’t

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-26925956434191668502010-08-22T16:48:00.005-05:002010-09-03T14:21:47.152-05:00

Probably the most profound line ever written in regard to Withnail & I describes it as being "as deep as you want it to be or as shallow as you need it to be.” I don’t know who wrote that, but I cannot discuss the film without mentioning it. Set in the final months of 1969, Withnail traces the antics of two out of work actors living in a filth-laden flat in Camden Town, London. To “escape all

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-44408472490223954012010-08-22T16:42:00.004-05:002010-09-03T14:21:47.162-05:00

If you were a certain kind of boy or young teenager in the 80s, then there’s a good chance Time Bandits was a very important film for you. Sure, you loved Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, but Time Bandits was special in a different way because not everyone else was in on it; it was seemingly dismissed even by most adults (well, the ones I grew up around anyway). For many

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-75486182857733406352010-08-17T22:19:00.003-05:002010-08-17T22:22:05.456-05:00

It isn’t often that a series reinvents itself so successfully that you don’t find yourself longing for the seasons that came before, but that’s exactly what happens with Season Four of Friday Night Lights. At the close of Season Three, Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) had lost his job coaching for the Dillon Panthers, and a case of redistricting left him in charge of a non-existent East Dillon team.

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-60647066614489266072010-08-13T13:05:00.004-05:002010-09-03T14:21:58.670-05:00

"Weird sex. Obsession. Comic books." That’s what the movie poster for Crumb said back when the movie came out in 1995. If you were trying to figure out a way to market this documentary at that time, those are as good of jumping off points as any, and yet there’s no question that Crumb is about so much more.I don’t recall what exactly it was that drew me to Crumb 15 years ago, as I was only

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-9569822269234206162010-07-28T13:45:00.004-05:002010-07-28T13:51:09.296-05:00

The lovely Lenora Crichlow is mostly unknown to U.S. audiences, unless of course you’re a fan of the BBC America series Being Human (Saturdays at 9PM). Crichlow plays one third of a trio of roommates comprised of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. The striking actress [dis]embodies the latter - the spirit of Annie Sawyer, doomed to an afterlife of making tea and wearing the same eternal grey

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-86782369908859993122010-07-28T13:40:00.005-05:002010-10-13T18:04:04.855-05:00

Rhoda was an incredibly successful series during its first two seasons. It was, in fact, a top ten show, going so far as to best its parent series, Mary Tyler Moore, in the ratings. And yet, as I understand it, the writers found it difficult to write for Rhoda (Valerie Harper) as a married woman. So at the start of Season Three they made an incredibly radical move for the time – they separated

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-66070155264613870062010-07-25T08:35:00.003-05:002010-07-25T08:38:47.568-05:00

And so we come to yet another season finale of the greatest science fiction series ever created. This is the recap I’ve been both anticipating and dreading writing in equal parts since first seeing “The Big Bang” some weeks ago; anticipating because of how much I adored this finale, and dreading because there’s no way I can do it justice in a mere recap. It’s not even an issue of space or time (

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-72963640175609923982010-07-21T12:48:00.005-05:002010-07-28T13:51:53.191-05:00

A TV series that in a one sentence pitch can be most easily described as “a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost all live together in the same house” must surely be a comedy, right? Well yes, and no. Being Human certainly has comedic elements, but they’re rarely of the “yuk-yuk” variety. It is in fact difficult to pigeonhole the series with a label. Is it horror? Comedy? Drama? It’s all those and

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-33812699061748944552010-07-17T22:01:00.002-05:002010-07-17T22:09:21.570-05:00

From the very first scene, “The Pandorica Opens” is an ominous piece of work. France, 1890. Vincent van Gogh (Tony Curran) writhes in mental torment, presumably in the last days of his life. It appears that he actually did paint another piece, and it’s somehow tied to the Doctor. After the Doctor and Amy left Vincent at the close of “Vincent and the Doctor,” the Time Lord asserted that “we

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-87836126088747875112010-07-12T17:53:00.002-05:002010-07-12T17:58:37.994-05:00

Each season of the new Doctor Who has one or two “experimental” episodes – stories that just don’t feel like anything that’s come before. Thus far, most – if not all – of these stories have been successes. “Boom Town,” “Love & Monsters,” “Blink,” “Turn Left,” and “Midnight” have arguably been highlights in each of their seasons. It’s noteworthy that all but one of those was written by Russell T.

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-12608498561218923772010-07-06T23:59:00.005-05:002011-05-10T15:55:39.156-05:00

Given that there was such a dearth of new Jon Pertwee releases over the last couple years, the classic Doctor Who DVD range has more than made up for the oversight this year. Between the outstanding “Dalek War” box set and the middling “Peladon” stories, it’s been quite the ride for fans of the Third Doctor (although there are numerous great Pertwee tales that have yet to make it to the silver

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-79194455817192949312010-07-06T23:54:00.003-05:002010-07-06T23:58:49.477-05:00

Following producer Philip Hinchcliffe’s nearly perfect era of Doctor Who was never going to be an easy task for anyone, but it fell upon Graham Williams to take the job. His three years on the series are pretty uneven, but that’s not to say that he didn’t occasionally produce a gem here and there. Here are two stories from his era that together are a pretty good representation of its highs and

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-40970292482496193442010-07-06T23:44:00.004-05:002010-07-06T23:50:22.125-05:00

Before moving on to the stories themselves, let’s go ahead and get the ugliness out of the way, because there’s no point in dancing around the septic tank with a bouquet of flowers. For perhaps the first time on DVD, a Doctor Who story is being presented in an edited form, and it’s got nothing to do with anything other than copyright issues. The edit occurs in the first episode of “The Chase.”

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-38585090063744099892010-06-29T23:43:00.003-05:002010-06-29T23:50:55.717-05:00

As someone who loves science fiction, it’s unfortunate that I’ve got an almost irrational resistance to programming on Syfy. It goes all the way back to their brutal treatment of Farscape, and while logic tells me that Battlestar Galactica should have made up for that misstep, I still find it hard to trust the network to this day. Or maybe it’s just that most of their programming sucks, and is

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-11905332954575810742010-06-26T21:57:00.005-05:002010-06-26T22:03:28.933-05:00

If somebody asked me to make a short list of my favorite writers and/or directors working today, Richard Curtis isn’t the first person who’d leap to mind. He might not even be the fifth. Despite that, I count myself as a big, big fan of his stuff, going all the way back to Blackadder, and right up to his most recent work, Pirate Radio, a movie which didn’t do well at the box office and got some

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-57949711818293020622010-06-20T01:19:00.003-05:002010-06-20T01:23:12.834-05:00

Last week I posted a quick update saying that I would wait until this week to write about both of these episodes, but that “The Hungry Earth” was a “very good setup.” Having had a week to reflect on that, I’m not so sure that’s the case, and yet I still think “The Hungry Earth” is a very or at least reasonably good episode, but perhaps not an effective setup for “Cold Blood,” unless you enjoy

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-32951258765028927192010-06-15T14:24:00.004-05:002010-06-15T14:38:54.397-05:00

Only on Nip/Tuck can a character utter a line like “Dildo sales are down. It’s the goddamn economy,” and make it sound a perfectly reasonable thing to say. There are aspects I will miss about Nip/Tuck, and one of them is its ability to take the most outlandishly offensive situation and make it seem relatively normal, at least within the context of the show. But all good and bad things must come

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-74529845026964742732010-06-07T23:48:00.003-05:002010-06-07T23:52:08.512-05:00

It’s almost hard to believe that Curb Your Enthusiasm has been a comedy staple for 10 years. After all, it spends far more time off the air than it does on, and the number of episodes produced to date is only 70 (although we’re getting yet another 10 in 2011). Back at the start of the decade, who would’ve guessed that the adventures of one bald asshole would outlive other HBO staples like Sex and

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-32368158452115720232010-06-06T11:27:00.002-05:002010-06-06T11:30:42.748-05:00

Here we are, more or less mid-season, and as someone who’s recapping this block of episodes week in and out, as well as someone who’s been deconstructing this series for years now, I’m frankly a bit flummoxed by Steven Moffat’s inaugural year. It’s starting to feel as if the season is only going to make total sense once it’s over and done with. Some time ago, long before the season began, Moffat

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-25670060216251674742010-05-29T19:02:00.003-05:002010-05-29T19:06:00.839-05:00

If cinema, at its core, is a visual art form, then Nicolas Roeg’s debut feature Walkabout is surely one of the greatest examples of filmmaking. The screenplay, written by Edward Bond, was allegedly only 14 pages long, and yet the movie has a 100-minute running time. It isn’t hard to believe that tidbit once you see the movie, as the dialogue is sparse, and yet it has the power to hold the viewer

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-36849032058929838492010-05-23T03:04:00.005-05:002010-05-23T03:11:57.870-05:00

I was sold on “The Vampires of Venice” (not “Vampires in Venice,” which is what I mistakenly called it at the close of last week’s recap) by its beginning – well, its second beginning, since there are two. In the first, we are in Venice of 1580 and Guido (Lucian Msamati) has brought his daughter Isabella (Alisha Bailey) before Signora Rosanna Calvierri (Helen McCrory). He wants for her to be a

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-33698149852693135272010-05-18T15:01:00.004-05:002010-05-18T15:08:28.978-05:00

Jerry Stahl is a great writer who once upon a time had a very rough time of it while trying to write TV scripts in Hollywood. He became addicted to heroin and watched his career and life quickly spin out of his control. He mapped out these experiences in a grimly humorous tell-all called “Permanent Midnight,” which was later made into a rather tepid movie starring Ben Stiller. One of the shows

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-90120766833329395442010-05-17T02:21:00.004-05:002010-05-17T02:25:29.330-05:00

Now I’d had a little bit to drink – OK, a lot to drink – before I watched “Flesh and Stone,” and when it was over I swore it was the best episode of new “Who” ever. Upon sobering up, I watched it again. It was not the best episode of new “Who” ever…but it was still pretty damn great, and certainly both parts of this story combined make for one helluva sterling example of what makes the new series

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-19977415380357733002010-05-11T02:41:00.002-05:002010-05-11T02:45:26.141-05:00

The classic range of Doctor Who DVDs is in a weird area right now. Much of the good stuff has already been released, and so plenty of the mediocre material is currently making its way to the silver platter. There’s still a number of great stories that have yet to see the light of day, but since the goal is to finally get all of it out there and available within the next three or so years, the

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-75883147386012931292010-05-11T02:35:00.002-05:002010-05-11T02:41:05.069-05:00

The bulk of Jon Pertwee’s first three seasons as the Doctor saw him exiled to Earth, but occasionally he’d find himself with a working TARDIS that whisked him away to another planet for the duration of a story. Such was the case in “The Curse of Peladon,” a sort of sci-fi Shakespearean mystery, which sounds like a pretty oddball collection of genres to cram together, and as a result the story is

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-5592507460070323592010-05-09T03:30:00.003-05:002010-05-09T03:33:40.642-05:00

After being so thoroughly underwhelmed for the past two weeks, “The Time of Angels” almost leaves me speechless. I wish I could just write, “Man, that was so fuckin’ cool” and be done with it, since anything I’ve got to say isn’t going to make it any cooler. With this episode, we’ve finally gotten to material with major promise – probably even beyond promise, but since it’s only part one of a

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-71409428468196933532010-05-02T09:09:00.013-05:002010-05-02T09:20:39.020-05:00

“Daleks. I sometimes think those mutated misfits will terrorize the universe for the rest of time.”Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor, following yet another skirmish with the cockroaches from Skaro, uttered the above quote near the end of his reign as the Time Lord. If he’d known then that he’d still be dealing with them in his Eleventh incarnation, he may well have decided to forego his impending

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-80218621236671389032010-04-28T01:43:00.002-05:002010-04-28T01:47:38.452-05:00

After giving fairly middling reviews to the last several seasons of Dallas, one thing I wasn’t expecting from this penultimate collection of episodes was some of the strongest material the show’s offered up in a good long while. With Season Thirteen, the powers that be managed to create one of the very best seasons of the latter half of the series, although it goes without saying that you can’t

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921525.post-45802829927987168822010-04-28T01:38:00.004-05:002010-04-28T01:42:58.944-05:00

Amongst the ‘80s power soaps Dallas, Dynasty, and Knot’s Landing was the seemingly far less famous Falcon Crest, although the show had a lengthy run that spanned the entire decade. Instead of oil – the business of the two big D’s – Falcon Crest used the wine industry as its centerpiece. Set in the wine country of northern California, about an hour away from San Francisco, the series unveils the

Ross Ruedigerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796449359255091290noreply@blogger.com