Jennifer Buchanan

I immediately fell in love with this show and binged the entire first season over the weekend. Hopefully Netflix won’t cancel the series like the last one I adored...The OA.😡 This witty dark comedy is a post apocalyptic tribute to Ferris Bueller, except the location is now California, Matthew Broderick plays the principal, and Cameron has been replaced by a gay black football player who thinks he’s a samurai. We follow Josh Wheeler (modern Ferris) in his quest to find his girlfriend Sam. After nuclear bioweapons devastated the world, the teens divide into tribes based on their high school cliques (jocks, cheerleaders, geeks, Kardashian wannabes, even the 4H club make appearances) The adults have either turned to gel or become Ghoulies, flesh-eating mutations that repeat their last cogent thoughts (“I need to cancel my Facebook account because it’s too divisive..”...hee!) The producers have tremendous fun breaking the 4th wall, then reinventing the show’s genre, tone and narration in each successive episode while maintaining continuity and building upon the engaging storyline. Although the show features Generation Z, there are plenty of 80s and 90s references for the “adult” viewers. Watch the script and settings closely for Easter eggs galore. The cast is top-notch: it’s such a relief to have teenagers played by actual teens, and the actors display both incredible nuance and comic timing. Extra credit to 12 year old Alyvia Alyn Lind, who convincingly plays a troubled child prodigy with more layers than an onion. I’ve read some reviews that complain about the “left-leaning” dialogue and plot lines. Trust me, if this were a show celebrating progressives, I’d have hit the thumbs down button and moved on in 10 minutes. Daybreak revels in mocking the PC tropes that appear with sincerity on mainstream media. If you think that the show’s election of “Gender Neutral Homecoming Royalty” was meant to be instructional, take a deep breath, then sit back and enjoy the irony. If you crossed Heathers, Mean Girls, Glee and Dawn of the Dead...you still wouldn’t get a show as awesome as Daybreak.

I lasted through 4 episodes. I wanted to like Emergence because I'm a fan of the X-Files/Fringe/Revolution genre. Unfortunately, the networks seem to be cancelling an increasing number of funky apocalyptic sci-fi series after just one season (I see you, The Passage — er, I saw you). So, I take what I can get and cross my fingers that at least 1 such show will survive. But, the chances of survival for Emergence look slim. The plot is moving only slightly faster than a slug. The conversations between the characters are 90% exposition (show, don't tell). The cast members seem like a random group that got off the elevator together....well, random while meeting obvious diversity goals. Allison Tolman in particular is miscast in the lead role as police chief. She's playing it as Fargo New England, screwing up her mouth and staring into the wind for one awkwardly long pause after another. The role would greatly benefit from the depiction of leadership abilities, instinct, and drive (if not charisma equivalent to the mysterious reporter with the foreign accent), but all of these are in short supply. The Emergence producers did shell out for stellar reviews, but they should have given their contractors a longer list of talking points than: "instantly hooked," "love that they show real people/have a relatable cast," "the little girl who plays Piper is amazing!" and "there is so much eerie suspense and atmosphere." Ugh. A 7.4 show this is not.

I haven’t read the book, so my opinion is based solely on the quality of the show. One of the least scary “horror” series I’ve ever seen, NOS4A2 completely failed to engage me. It suffered from poor casting, a spotty script, and a slow, rambling plot. The details that the producers threw in for authenticity were the wrong details. Halfway through the season, we should have had more than a glimpse of the cryo-children and Christmasland. Instead, we were trapped in Bing’s tedious backstory and wringing our hands over the Brat’s abusive father and selfish mother. We understand that the Brat is a blue-collar townie. We don’t need to spend hours dwelling on her family angst, her part-time job scrubbing toilets, and her financial aid application. [NOTE: Since the show has inexplicably been renewed, bless the aging actress with a makeover for the second season. Give her a hairstyle other than “mop,” and don’t punish her with pinkeye when she has a psychic moment!] The showrunners also need to decide whether the demographic audience is Disney Channel OR HBO. It’s disconcerting and inappropriate to have the Scrabble tile medium channel Hannah Montana, then seduce girls into soft porn scenes in the library. I cancelled my DVR pass after the 4th episode. AMC, I’m still counting on you to do justice to Hugh Howey’s Wool — please don’t let me down.

There are few shows as all-around outstanding as iZombie. The cast is superb, skillfully taking on the new persona that result from brain-eating (often to great comedic effect). The plot line and arcs are complex but cohesive, so that individual episodes are as engaging and entertaining as the series in its entirety. Easily on a par with and even superior to its predecessors Buffy and Veronica Mars.

This is a slow-paced, quiet film that gave me plenty of time to consider whether I liked it. I decided that overall, I did, primarily due to the freshness of the subject matter. Like many other reviewers, I found disturbing the teacher’s failure to respect nearly all of the child’s boundaries, but that was essential to the story. Maggie Gyllenhaal managed to drag a convincingly complex character out of a part that, on its face, was a one-note disgruntled liberal pseudo intellectual. She was necessarily as grating as that description sounds, but she also created tones of loneliness, hope and insecurity that breathed life into her role. Her confusion at the poetry professor’s anger over her deceit was perfect, as was her automatically becoming a helpful kindergarten teacher when her pupil had to make an important call. Imperfect choices for the character included her affair and her apparent failure to seek potential in her own children. Also? Put your damn blouse on, Maggie. Lena Dunham has covered THOROUGHLY the concept of exposing “real” women’s bodies, thank you very much, and there was no authentic reason why you had to be naked for half the movie. The boy who played the 5 year old was a 5 year old with a good head for memorizing lines, but not acting (sorry). I realize the casting challenges in finding a 5 year old genius who can deliver poems with...SOME sort of meaning, but the child actor’s understandable shortcomings only underscored the thin likelihood that a child could in fact write simple but beautiful poems with multiple layers of connotations, no matter how bright. Perhaps non-rhyming poetry was one reach too many for the plot. A child who composed like Mozart or wrote non-fiction like Anne Frank should have been nearly as compelling for the teacher’s character (other than impacting her ability to cheat on her homework), and would have been more credible for both the supporting cast and the audience. That said, the most powerful moment for me was at the end of the movie: he wanted to read his new poem, and no one cared to listen. Back to your devices, boys and girls. A solid B- from me.

Loved Unbreakable, liked Split, so disappointed by Glass. This is the movie where you and your fellow viewers constantly talk back to the screen to explain to the movie why it’s f***ed up and say things like “yes, I know this isn’t supposed to be a realistic movie, but none of this is realistic,” particularly on topics like staffing and security protocols at a hospital for the criminally insane. Glass suffers vastly from a lack of continuity, coherency and cohesiveness, although I don’t think this is the trifecta Shyamalan hoped to create. It’s difficult to discuss this in any detail without divulging spoilers, but here’s one example of a basic lack of physical continuity: Dr. Staple is interviewing the 3 patients in a vast room with 4-6 guards lined up against the walls. In a cutaway shot, the guards vanished, and it seemed so intentional that we commented on how stupid they were to leave her alone with 3 (pseudo) criminally ill patients. The camera returns to the doctor, and there the guards are, intact. It wasn’t a clever or philosophical plot point. It was just messy. The most clever aspect of the film is its real-time identification of comic book tropes a la Scream’s send-up of slasher movies, but it doesn’t even get these right. (SPOILER - I GIVE UP) Near the end, Mr. Glass’s mother moans, “I didn’t think this could happen in a limited edition!” In an apparent revelatory moment, Mr. Glass smiles and says, “It’s not a limited edition. It’s an ORIGIN STORY.” Ahhhh....OK? Cut to the chase: don’t spend time trying to guess whether Joseph and/or Casey are putting on their new capes. There is no origin story, merely the public disclosure of the existence of superheroes. Watch this to imagine how much fun James McAvoy had acting out 24 bizarre personalities. If you’re there to root for Bruce, prepare for more disappointment (hey, I already said spoiler alert).