Blogcritics Author: Jeffrey Williams

TV Review: The Andromeda Strain

Jeffrey Williams — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:05:56 EDT

Not even laughably bad, and makes one yearn for the 1971 original.
A&E’s remake of The Andromeda Strain was a 'blink and you’ll miss it' affair. Once upon a time, a lavish four-hour miniseries based on a Michael Crichton novel and executive produced by Ridley and Tony Scott would have been a headline television event. Those days are long gone. Whether this re-make disappeared off the radar...

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Jeffrey Williams — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:56:08 EDT

$185 million dollars worth of defenseless mediocrity.
Two weeks prior to its release, I wrote a review of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. My pre-release review was equal parts contempt and resignation, swirled around with a jigger of blogger’s snarkiness. It was a sophomoric stunt, to be sure, but one with a point: that this is a movie so predictable one doesn’t even...

Brownmark Films: Q&A With The Creators Of "What What (In The Butt)"

Jeffrey Williams — Thu, 8 May 2008 07:02:18 EDT

The creators of "What What (In The Butt)" discuss being parodied by South Park.
In the most recent season of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone turned their satirical eye on viral Internet videos. In the episode "Canada On Strike", the main characters try to create an Internet sensation so they can earn millions of dollars. What they learn instead is that the Internet is a wild (and in the show, deadly) frontier...

CSI: Miami - Television Is Where America Dreams

Jeffrey Williams — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:30:10 EDT

Love it or hate it, it's one of the best shows on television.
Disclosure: I once worked for CBS to produce television advertising for CSI: Miami, and many of the opinions expressed below have been informed and influenced by those experiences. The odds are that CSI: Miami is either a show you love, or a show you love to hate. Whichever camp you fall into, it’s a certainty that your opinion of the...

TV Review: South Park - "Canada On Strike!"

Jeffrey Williams — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 17:51:56 EDT

What, what... in the butt! Brilliant South Park satire of the recent writers' strike.
Season twelve of South Park continues to hit high notes with “Canada On Strike!” This is what South Park does best -- lining up the confluence of power and self-righteousness and gleefully hanging it with its own rope. Trey Parker and Matt Stone despise the arrogance of authority and privilege. One of the most common satirical...

TV Review: Futurama - "Bender's Big Score"

Jeffrey Williams — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:43:23 EDT

Futurama returns, to disappoint its hard-core old fans and alienate potential new ones.
In the science fiction/fantasy genre, there are two types of zombies. The old school type is slow and uncoordinated, its body broken by decay; it mostly staggers around blindly and groaning incoherently. The new school type is fast and mean, running at full speed after fresh meat.Television shows returning from cancellation can be lumped into the...

TV Review: South Park - "Britney's New Look"

Jeffrey Williams — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:40:03 EDT

Trey Parker and Matt Stone return to form with a brilliant, but uneven episode.
South Park is back.After the mis-fire of last week's episode, "Britney's New Look" was a welcome return to form for Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The episode takes our gossip-obsessed culture to the edges of horror, equating our tabloid-television fixations with the ancient historical practices of human sacrifice. That absurd perversion of logic is...

TV Review: Knight Rider (2008)

Jeffrey Williams — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:20:01 EST

For an encyclopedic list of everything wrong with television in 2008, look no further than NBC's back door pilot movie Knight Rider.
A decade from now, if you wanted an encyclopedic list of everything wrong with television in 2008, you'll need to look no further than NBC's back door pilot movie Knight Rider. The original series aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986, and quite frankly, it hasn't aged well. Cheap production values, unsophisticated plots, and David...

Movie Review: There Will Be Blood

Jeffrey Williams — Thu, 7 Feb 2008 13:12:00 EST

Don't believe the hype, by next year it will only be remembered as a parody.
At first glance, There Will Be Blood feels pre-fabricated for the “masterpiece” label. It’s anchored by a showy, overly intense performance. It has elegant cinematography, and the courage to unfold at a languid, dream-like pace. Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson won’t hurry along the story, letting his lead performers...