Favorite

I just discovered I have somehow never reviewed this major favorite of mine. A modern redefinition of the film noir and crime dramas, and probably, with "Pulp Fiction", responsible for…

Holy cow. Up there with the best of"Black Mirror"-quality writing, but less like the Twilight Zone and more like finding a trove of lost Ray Bradbury stories... Small-town life above a mysterious underground research facility. Old folks gather in barns and play fiddle beneath strange technological ruins. Kids wander through the autumn woods and find derelict robots and mysterious artifacts. The stories are humanist and character-driven, not technology-driven, and as well-written as any sci-fi I've seen.

Originally aired in the '90s, this might be my favorite comedy series of all time, and close to my favorite TV show of any kind, ever. Garry Shandling is a funny guy,"It's Garry Shandling's Show"was cute and very entertaining, but I think he's generally regarded as a second-stringer of his era behind guys like Seinfeld, and doesn't get the credit he deserves for his excellent writing and work behind the scenes in a lot of things (for instance, ending Judd Apatow's"The 40 Year Old Virgin"with an absurd musical number was Shandling's idea.) The Larry Sanders Show is his crowning achievement, and to me one of television's crowning achievements, full stop. An amazing show-within-a-show focusing on the production of a talk show hosted by a fragile, selfish narcissist (Shandling playing completely against type), his craven and insecure cohost (played in another stellar turn by the doesn't-seem-like-an-actor-who-has-star-turns Jeffrey Tambor), their gregarious but mean-when-drunk veteran TV exec producer played with absolute comic genius by Rip Torn, and a host of other faces who are still around (Janeane Garofalo, Jeremy Piven, Wallace Langham, Mary Lynn Rajskub) as the beleaguered writers and office staff supporting them, plus a bunch of celebrity cameos who are more than happy to play embarrassing versions of themselves (a la"Extras", another great tv-behind-the-scenes series.) I think this show ran for six seasons and was incredibly smart and funny the whole way through. An absolutely must-watch.

I always knew Hank Azaria was going to do something I was going to love. I waited and waited and it didn't happen, until"Brockmire". Absolutely a favorite show of mine, following the ups and downs of Azaria as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic baseball announcer. Everyone I've recommended it to has loved it too. Seriously, all you have to do is watch the first episode, and if you don't love it by the end of that first half hour, you can skip it. I actually had one friend call me before the first episode was even over to rave about how much he loved it. It's that good. Trigger warning: It does get a pretty dark in the second season, he hits some pretty low depths. Still, a bona fide gem and I will never understand why you never hear anybody mention right alongside the best shows of all time.

What can I say about Atlanta that hasn't been said? This show started good and only got better. An incredibly well-acted, often poetic, well-written depiction of life of an up-and-coming rapper and his crew. Lots of very realistic, three-dimensional character study, peppered with frequent surrealism and deadpan comedy, unusual takes on race issues not often seen in mainstream media, an absolute refusal to be bound by TV or genre conventions, and occasional usually-successful experimental episodes that depart partially or entirely from the main characters and plot of the series. In my mind, one of the consistently best TV series ever made. When a new season comes out, I actually save this one until I'm ready to sit and take it in.

This is a movie that has lived on in my heart, and vividly the corners of my mind, ever since I first saw it—so much so that I had a little bit of trepidation about watching it again. Would it live up to my recollections? The answer: yes, absolutely. This is one of those movies I'm not sure I'd ever recommend to anyone else, but it plucks my strings just right... made with zero budget and very little by way of plot, in terms of story this entire movie is nothing but a group of hikers losing their grip on reality. And the ending is straight-up terrible, no way around it. But the journey there, just the walk in the woods slowly going incomprehensibly wrong, not even for any reason that's ever given, I find just gripping and disturbing. Worth noting, I usually multitask when I'm watching movies, and even on this second viewing this one sucked me in and distracted me from my laptop. Possibly the most disturbing horror movie set mostly in daytime. It's really a movie about losing control, to me a much scarier thing than any monster. This is one of those movies that, while nobody will ever call it a masterpiece—make no mistake, it's a low-budget indie flick from start to finish—but I find (and a lot of reviewers seem to agree with me) something about it is very affecting; it sticks in your mind. It's a quietly-building grotesquerie. I bet Lars von Trier likes it, or would. And I'm reminded of Roger Ebert's review of von Trier's"Antichrist", which essentially says,"I can't say I liked it; but I can't stop thinking about it."This one is the low-budget indie version of that. (EDIT: Googling around, I found this page of extremely polarized comments on Reddit that sum it up nicely: https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/xq7okl/yellowbrickroad/ )

This is my favorite movie, full stop. I love this movie so much, am so close to it, I don't know what to say. It's like trying to write a…

My favorite film by my favorite director. Wait, ok. A little virtue-signalling never hurt anyone, so I'll point out: From everything I've read and seen, director Lars von Trier seems…

I consider this film about a young boy who forms a friendship with centuries-old vampire who looks like a 12-year-old girl to be maybe one of the top 10 horror…

I can't say this obscure 1964 Vincent Price is a truly great movie but it will always have a very special place in my heart. Unlike some of my most…

I adore this movie. Well done, old-school humanist, character-driven sci fi. There's like three characters in the whole movie, a lot of talk and very little action, qualities some other…

A huge favorite of mine. Nathan Fielder is a "business expert" who comes up with hilarious, incredibly ludicrous, far-fetched ideas to save struggling businesses in this unscripted, quasi-"reality" show. Just…

I loved this show. Jay Baruchel, Eric Andre, and the ridiculously likable Britt Lower in a magical-realist take on dating. If you've ever gone to a party and discovered your…

What can I say about "Touching The Void"? I'm a sucker for a good survival story, and "Touching The Void" is one of the best of them. It's a true…