Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie (review)

The title means “King of Games,” and beyond the clear aim of getting kids to separate their parents from cold hard cash in exchange for the real-life Yu-Gi-Oh game cards for which this is a blatant advertisement, the film is thoroughly incomprehensible. On the plus side, it is the funniest film of the year, full … more…

The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (review)

Royalty ain’t what it used to be. “I hope they have string cheese,” intones one aristo at a formal ball at the palace of Genovia, the very same party at which all but one of the “eligible bachelors” of the tiny fictional European monarchy prove they can’t dance worth a damn. It’d be refreshing, this … more…

Sliders: Dual Dimension Edition: The First and Second Seasons (review)

How did I miss getting into Sliders the first time around, when it aired on Fox and then the Sci-Fi Channel? It’s totally my kind of show: escapist and science fictional, and there’s a really cute guy, that chubby kid from Stand by Me who grew up so nice. College student Quinn (the no-longer-chubby Jerry … more…

Knight Rider: Season One (review)

All I remember is how awesome that car was. C’mon: I was a 13-year-old geek, and a benign Hal in a black Trans Am was too cool. But ohmigod, how deliciously, 80s-y awful is Knight Rider today! It’s like the unholy love child of two genres that filled the airwaves in the Carter and Reagan … more…

Kira’s Reason: A Love Story (review)

Freed from the artifices and tricks of filmmaking, the Danish directors following the Dogme doctrine — whose rules, among other things, require the use of only natural lighting and sound and forbid the importation of props to shoots, which must be done on location — have created a new kind of spare, theatrical, intensely fervent … more…

The King of Queens: 1st Season (review)

Do I look fat in this sitcom to you? Obvious and distasteful, this working-class “comedy” relies entirely on class and gender stereotypes to elicit laughs in the same way that one pulls teeth. Doug Heffernan (Kevin James), a professional package-deliverer complete with ugly brown uniform, is like a real-life, unironic Homer Simpson, but his wife, … more…

Junkers Come Here (review)

With its beautifully illustrative animation, reminiscent of a children’s book, and its bittersweet, reassuring story, this is a film kids will take to heart… and one parents can feel comfortable about letting them do so. With her overworked, mostly absent parents on the verge of divorce and her 23-year-old tutor — the one she has … more…

Go Tell It on the Mountain (review)

Based on James Baldwin’s powerful novel, this 1985 movie from PBS’s American Playhouse is a heart-wrenching tale of tragedy, hypocrisy, and a hard-heartedness born of hard times. Following the journeys — physical, spiritual, and emotional — of three generations of one African-American family, from the post-Civil War rural South to Harlem in the 1930s, this … more…

ER: The Complete First Season (review)

Nine years after its multiple-Emmy-winning debut season, ER‘s combination of intense medical realism and dishy doctor soap opera has inspired a devoted fan following, and this jam-packed set will be catnip to them. A look back at where these now-beloved characters got their start — burnt-out resident Mark Green (Anthony Edwards), naive med student John … more…

Doctor Zhivago (review)

Boris Pasternak’s Nobel Prize-winning novel, the classic story of star-crossed lovers amidst a backdrop of the social upheaval of the Russian Revolution, gets a stunning new production via British television and PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. Adapted by Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice) and starring two appealing young rising stars, this is a grimly beautiful production electrifyingly … more…