Film, DVD & TV Reviews

Shared Passion
(a review of TCM Classic Film Festival)
April 2010

With highlights from over 70 years of movies, the Festival celebrates what Stevens calls America’s unique contribution to the world’s artistic heritage. “If you remove the contributions of the U.S. from the corpus of classical music, it’s not a major loss. If you take the U.S. contribution to the cinema away, you severely deplete the body of the cinematic arts.”

Baroque Gavotte
(a review of City Island - film)
April 2010

When Vinnie invites Nardella home for the last 30 days of his parole, just as Vivian continues her face-saving fiction of a college career by coming home for spring break, the characters plunge into a baroque gavotte of tenderness, revelation, and farce

Especially Disconcerting
(a review of Fringe - tv)
April 2010

This new episode ups the stakes, suggesting that science itself, through the actions of adherents like Walter, may be contributing to its own marginalization. His moral struggle not only prompts some serious self-examination in viewers, but also reminds us that the capacities of science are outstripping human capacity for moral judgment, and the results are far from clear.

We Had Momentum
(a review of Hot Tub Time Machine - film)
March 2010

But the movie is funniest when it relies on the cast’s charisma and comic timing. In the bathroom-and-mirrors sequence where the gone-to-seed losers confront their svelte ‘80s incarnations, Cusack, Corddry, and Robinson wordlessly embody the agony of confronting both their lost promise and the existential terror of adult banality.

Everybody's Got ideas
(A review of How to Make It in America - tv)
February 2010

Like several other recent dramas, How to Make It drops the audience cold into a fast-moving milieu, where dialogue and location whip past so fast that the first 10 minutes resemble a kind of three-dimensional jigsaw, with each new scene forcing a speedy reassessment of exactly what is happening to whom.

A Creature of Will and Intellect
(a review of Damages - tv)
February 2010

On a much broader palette, Patty’s actions, rather like those of Jack Bauer in 24, dramatize the fundamental contradiction at the heart of any democratic society. When one’s enemies will play every single dirty trick possible, how does one win without transgressing familiar moral imperatives?.

Reviews for PopMatters, an international magazine of cultural criticism Reviews for PopMatters, an international magazine of cultural criticism
2010	2009	2008	2007 & 2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
Shared Passion (a review of TCM Classic Film Festival) April 2010 With highlights from over 70 years of movies, the Festival celebrates what Stevens calls America’s unique contribution to the world’s artistic heritage. “If you remove the contributions of the U.S. from the corpus of classical music, it’s not a major loss. If you take the U.S. contribution to the cinema away, you severely deplete the body of the cinematic arts.” Baroque Gavotte (a review of City Island - film) April 2010 When Vinnie invites Nardella home for the last 30 days of his parole, just as Vivian continues her face-saving fiction of a college career by coming home for spring break, the characters plunge into a baroque gavotte of tenderness, revelation, and farce Especially Disconcerting (a review of Fringe - tv) April 2010 This new episode ups the stakes, suggesting that science itself, through the actions of adherents like Walter, may be contributing to its own marginalization. His moral struggle not only prompts some serious self-examination in viewers, but also reminds us that the capacities of science are outstripping human capacity for moral judgment, and the results are far from clear. We Had Momentum (a review of Hot Tub Time Machine - film) March 2010 But the movie is funniest when it relies on the cast’s charisma and comic timing. In the bathroom-and-mirrors sequence where the gone-to-seed losers confront their svelte ‘80s incarnations, Cusack, Corddry, and Robinson wordlessly embody the agony of confronting both their lost promise and the existential terror of adult banality. Everybody's Got ideas (A review of How to Make It in America - tv) February 2010 Like several other recent dramas, How to Make It drops the audience cold into a fast-moving milieu, where dialogue and location whip past so fast that the first 10 minutes resemble a kind of three-dimensional jigsaw, with each new scene forcing a speedy reassessment of exactly what is happening to whom. A Creature of Will and Intellect (a review of Damages - tv) February 2010 On a much broader palette, Patty’s actions, rather like those of Jack Bauer in 24, dramatize the fundamental contradiction at the heart of any democratic society. When one’s enemies will play every single dirty trick possible, how does one win without transgressing familiar moral imperatives?.	A Forgotten Art (a review of Men of a Certain Age - tv) December 2009 As one might expect from Romano, a fast-moving mix of physical comedy and wry dialogue articulate this friendship, revealing its complexity and its depth. The guys touch on the mundane humiliations of maturity: bad driving, a lengthening list of medications, the obduracy of parents, and the disdain of the young. Cappuccino in the Clouds (a review of White Collar - tv) October 2009 At first glance, White Collar seems like just another of USA’s odd-couple shows, in which FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) teams reluctantly with art forger and convict Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) to solve white collar crimes. But don’t be deceived. Both make complicated tradeoffs to set up this relationship... Women Weep (a review of NCIS: LA - tv) October 2009 Going into its third episode, NCIS: Los Angeles recalls the kind of situation in which one of Bellesario’s ex-military protagonists (say, Harm from JAG) would give the bad guy a gun and leave him alone to do the decent thing....One could watch NCIS: Los Angeles. But one could also watch paint dry with far less pain and no less gain. Poignant Farewells (a review of Three Rivers - tv) October 2009 When Lee hands the heart to Abbott and dispatches him to the operating theater, he calls after him to slow down, just in case he drops it. Abbott’s face reflects the same cognitive dissonance the audience feels: it’s a matter of life and death, but don’t hurry. Odd-Ball (a review of Fringe: Series Two Premiere - tv: pppmatters pick) September 2009 Serving as the slightly skeptical viewer’s surrogate, Peter’s is a voice of reason compelled by a sense of responsibility, affection, and the lack of alternatives, to protect his father and Olivia, the woman who recruited him to the Fringe Division by blackmail and has since become his friend. Translations (a review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - film) September 2009 Setting aside the consequences of human lust and appetite, Cloudy turns its moral tale of the BLT that squashed Paris (and other culinary disasters) into an innocuous rites-of-passage journey Life Choices (a review of All About Steve - film) September 2009 By its end, All About Steve achieves only one success, in its illustration of the plight of the talented comedienne in Hollywood today... a string of movies in which beautiful, bright women abnegate themselves to juvenile, misanthropic men. Popping (a review of Glee - tv) May 2009 One of the cruelest cons perpetrated on the young is the promise that adolescence is merely a particularly unpleasant “phase.” Glee, with malicious joy and some sympathy, reveals the adult world as no less uncertain and delusional. High-Stress Profession (a review of Southland: Season Premiere - tv) April 2009 "The series effectively combines chopped-up dialogue and fast cuts ...Here the layers of fragmentation make it unclear who might prove a major player in Southland or who’s window-dressing: the exchanges are so elliptical that the viewer has no idea what’s key and what’s throwaway." Condemned to Suffer (a review of The Last House on the Left - film) March 2009 Puritanical (a review of Mistresses - tv) February 2009 Play it Safe (a review of Inkheart - film) January 2009	Con Job (a review of Igor - film) September 2008 Recoil (a review of Death Race - film ) August 2008 Rites of Passage (a review of Star Wars:the Clone Wars - film ) August 2008 The Only Way Out (a review of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries - tv) August 2008 Consumer Goods (a reveiw of Sex and the City - film) July 2008 Regulated (a review of College Road Trip - film ) March 2008 Perfectionistas (a review of Cashmere Mafia - tv ) January 2008	Plundered (a review of Women's Murder Club - tv) October 2007 Unpredicatable Transcendence (a review of Friday Night Lights - tv) October 2007 PopMatters Pick of the Year Retro Conservatism (a review of Big Shots - tv) October 2007 Wish Fulfillment (a review of Journeyman - tv) September 2007 One Local Moment (a review of Mountain Patrol: Kekexili - film) April 2006	Looking Elsewhere (a review of Les Choristes - dvd) August 2005 A Setting Sun? (a review of The 4400 - tv) July 2005 Eat, Drink & Kick Ass (a review of The Closer - tv) July 2005 Anomie (a review of Into the West - tv) July 2005 Umbrella Resistance (a review of The Partisans of Vilna - dvd/cd set) May 2005 Song of Me (a review of The Flame Trees of Thika - dvd) May 2005 Charade (a review of Dear Frankie - film) March 2005 Clone Again (a review of Law & Order: Trial by Jury - tv) March 2005 Without Haste (a review of A Voyage in Time - dvd) February 2005	Status Quo (a review of National Treasure - film) November 2004 Loose Ends (a review of The West Wing - series 6, tv) November 2004 Itches (a review of dr. vegas - tv) October 2004 Law & Order (a review of Law & Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit & Law & Order: Criminal Intent - all tv) October 2004 A Plurality of Jesuses (a review of From Jesus to Christ - dvd ) September 2004 All Taken Away (a review of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - dvd) July 2004 Peregrinations (a review of The Winds of War - dvd) June 2004 Tube of Steel (a review of Das Boot (uncut) -dvd) June 2004 Seduced by Capitalism (a review of James' Journey to Jerusalem - film) March 2004 No Home (a review of Lost Boys of the Sudan) March 2004	Not All Jam and Jerusalem (a review of Calendar Girls - film ) December 2003 Sidewalk Impresario (a review of The Handler - tv) November 2003 Sex and Sentimentality (a review of Las Vegas- tv) October 2003 Cincinnatus or Caesar? (a review of Cromwell - dvd) October 2003 At the Gun Mouth of Time (a review of Rana's Wedding - film ) September 2003 A War Aslant (a review of Black and White in Color - dvd) August 2003 An Admirable Account of Himself (an obituary of Gregory Peck) June 2003 "Je Suis Earp, Wyatt Earp" (a review of Man on the Train - film ) May 2003 Tango de la Bore (a review of Assassination Tango- film) April 2003	No Longer (a review of Chicago - film ) December 2002 Lives Unlived (a review of The Hidden Half and Two Women - dvd ) December 2002 Visions (a review of Boomtown - tv) October 2002 Frankenstein (a review of Hack - tv) October 2002 Kitchen-Sink Killing (a review of The Sopranos - film ) September 2002 Forgotten by History (a review of Gaza Strip - film) September 2002 Open Your Own Book (a review of Married in America - tv) June 2002 Alice in Wonderland Logic (a review of The Path to War - tv ) June 2002 The Last Waltz (a review of The Last Waltz - film ) April 2002 Resistance Against Space (a review of Giacometti - dvd) February 2002 Chic to be Catholic (a review of First Monday - tv ) January 2002	Emotions by Numbers (a review of A Beautiful Mind - film ) December 2001 Rituals (a review of Citizen Baines - tv) November 2001 Twofers (a review of Crossing Jordan & Philly - tv) October 2001 The Doldrums of Mainstream Success (a review of Sex and the City - tv) August 2001 War Game (a review of Tigerland - film ) July 2001 Donne and Gone (a review of Wit - tv) April 2001	Bomb Threat (a review of Miss Congeniality - film) December 2000 Nothing But The Truth (a review of Deadline - film) October 2000 Looking Down (a review of Trixie - film ) August 2000 Claiming a Political Voice (a review of Titanic Town - film ) July 2000 The Lure of Genre (a review of Nurse Betty - film ) May 2000 Mifune (a review of Mifune - film ) April 2000 Sticking and Stunning (a review of The Beat - tv) April 2000 Reigning Men (a review of The West Wing - tv) March 2000 From Television to the Street (a review of Beautiful People - film ) March 2000 The Denominator of Denial (a review of The Whole Nine Yards - film) February 2000
lesley smith associate professor of integrative studies new century college college of humanities and social sciences george mason university fairfax va 22032 last updated: 11 setpember 2009