After missing out on a live event last year, CIFF decided to take it’s festival to the virtual world by calling it CIFF Streams this year! Hey, no skin off my back. I still get to participate, and I get to do it all from the comfort of my home! Not as many titles jumped out at me as Sundance did this year, but I still made some solid and pretty exciting choices. Let’s get reviewing!
Read moreDrama
Russian Doll – Season 1
Here I am, slowly making my way through a very long list of shows. What prompted me to watch Russian Doll? Well, for one thing, it’s a comedy/drama, which is right in my wheelhouse, it stars Natasha Lyonne, whose comedy chops I really enjoy, and finally, this first season is only eight episodes! I love something short and quality! And according to the critics, this show is very high quality. I also found out recently that they are finally shooting the promised second season, so I might as well gear up.
Read moreNetwork Television is Back!
After a very brief winter hiatus, a couple network shows I watch have made their way back on the air! I’m really talking about two questionable dramas, Prodigal Son and Big Sky. After some fun turns, I have faith that Prodigal Son is going to be decently entertaining moving forward even if they aren’t going to drop the case of the week format. Big Sky is still leaving me feeling unsatisfied, but I recently got my hands on the book the show is based off of, The Highway, so at least I’ll have fun comparing the two.
Read moreI Know This Much is True – Book & Miniseries Review
Whew! About about a month ago I sat down to watch the HBO miniseries starring my main man, Mark Ruffalo, as twins in I Know This Much is True. After finishing all six installments, I really liked it and decided to bite the bullet and read the 900 page book of the same name. I figured with that much in writing, the show surely missed details, but I was wrong!
Read moreServant Season 2
Ah this show! Perhaps this half hour horror/drama is something I would like to binge all at once. Each episode of Servant is suspenseful, and the past few weeks I was so bummed I had to wait a whole week for the next installment. To be fair, when I started the second season five episodes in, I had totally forgot that Apple+ aired their shows weekly. I guess that’s what I get for watching a bunch of their first season shows all at once.
Read moreEveryone is Doing Great – Season 1
You know, this is the second show in a short amount of time that really impressed me because of how well they represented a good friendship. And a male friendship at that! In the first, and hopefully not last, season of Everyone is Doing Great, we see to men in their late twenties really just learning to grow up. This show came as a recommendation that I was a little hesitant to watch but found that I really, really enjoyed it!
Read moreBook Review: The Swap by Robyn Harding
I don’t want to come out of the gate and say that this book was misleading, because really it wasn’t. It’s just that the blurb provided seemed to exclude a very key character that helped drive a lot of the plot of this thriller. Regardless, The Swap by Robyn Harding was at times wonderful and at other times a bit cheesy, but overall, it was a fun read that could perhaps be saved for your time on the beach.
Read moreMovies in Review
I think it will be hard to beat the amount of movies that I did in January (thank you, Sundance), but that does not mean what I’m watching isn’t of quality and that’s all that really matters. While a good chunk of these are new, I did swing back to one of my favorites from 2020. I also managed to get the last best picture nominee in over the weekend! Let’s take a look, shall we?
Read moreBook Review: Girl A by Abigail Dean
For a debut novel, Abigail Dean sure packs an impressive punch with Girl A! This book is equal parts devastating and thrilling, and she alludes to just enough that at least my morbid curiosity was sated. This story is something that could have very easily been ripped from the headlines and might scarily be someone’s future, but for now it is just fiction (and good fiction at that!).
Read moreMega Movie Weekend
I let you all down last week! Although, I promise you, I did in fact watch movies. Just not as many as I have been cranking out recently. With that in mind, I’ve got last week’s films below, as well as the ones that made the cut this week. Because voting for the Independent Spirit Awards will start in just a couple weeks, I’ve been sent screeners for a lot of the nominees, and while I’ve seen most of them, there are still a small handful I’ve been wanting to watch. Now’s my chance!
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