HUMANS – series one, episode eight
[usr 3.0] Had this been the last episode of Humans ever, it would be easier to be more vitriolic about the ways it disappointed me,...
TRUE DETECTIVE, 2.7 – ‘Black Maps and Motel Rooms’
[usr 4.0] Among the many problems I have with season two of True Detective, probably the main one is the show’s insistence on writing...
IT FOLLOWS (2014)
[usr 4.5] It Follows opens with a shot of a quiet, average suburban street, with the seeming calm of the camera’s slow pan across the...
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION (2015)
[usr 2.0] There’s never enough at stake in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. It whizzes along at a quip-a-minute, with stunning stunts from handsome Tom...
GHOSTBUSTERS: I Ain’t Afraid of No Girls
Any moviegoer would have predicted Ghostbusters to become one of the most sequelled movies ever, but the 1984 comedy’s live-action hopes fizzled after 1989’s poorly-received follow-up—which had fun moments,...
HANNIBAL, 3.8 – ‘The Great Red Dragon’
[usr 4.5] Let’s start with the most unmistakably meta moment in “The Great Red Dragon,” which occurs when Dr. Chilton (Raúl Esparza) visits the...
HUMANS – series one, episode seven
[usr 4.0] Well, Humans certainly isn’t dragging its heels now, is it? Unsurprising, perhaps, given that this is the penultimate episode, but the level...
TRUE DETECTIVE, 2.6 – ‘Church in Ruins’
[usr 3.0] If the first season of True Detective felt like the work of a TV writer who’d read far too many novels (with its...
SOUTHPAW (2015)
[usr 2.0] There’s a theory espoused by former Grantland editor Bill Simmons that sometimes people are just ready for certain movies; that the success...
WATERWORLD (1995)
Waterworld still evokes feelings of cinematic misfortune, two decades after the post-apocalyptic action film’s summer release, but time’s been kind to this 1995 ‘flopbuster’. Indeed, despite...
INSIDE OUT (2015)
[usr 5] It’s hard to imagine there’ll be a film this year as inventive and audacious as Pixar’s newest offering Inside Out. That might...
HANNIBAL, 3.7 – ‘Digestivo’
[usr 4.5] As Hannibal has always been at its best when it walks a fine line between high art and pulp, any episode that...