Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
After her husband leaves her, young mother of two Miriam “Midge” Maisel discovers that she has a talent for stand-up comedy. Could this be her calling? I think this series could have gone for another 5 years and still be one of the best comedies on television, but it’s nice to see them go out on an exceptionally high note. This final season wrapped up a bucket load of emotional loose ends and opened up another bucket load worth, but we had 5 good seasons that all stand on their own and make for an enjoyable and eminently watchable series....
While visiting family in Mexico, teenage Alex gains an unlikely companion when he discovers a young chupacabra hiding in his grandpa’s shed. To save the mythical creature, Alex and his cousins must embark on the adventure of a lifetime. As much of a homage to the 80’s films that inspired it, this is a fun story of a kid trying to find himself by finding his family, then inadvertently finding a goat killing monster hiding in his grandfather’s massive stable on a property that’s got to be valued in the millions. They all act like they’re super poor though, so...
Fury and Talos try to stop the Skrulls who have infiltrated the highest spheres of the Marvel Universe. “A six hour mini series that should have been a two hour movie” is how I’m seeing it described on the blogosphere and I agree, there’s way too much padding, too little story, and some of the action beats just didn’t make sense to me. There’s also some really open questions about who was a skrull and when they were switched out, questions that were not answered by the end of the series and will likely never be touched on by the...
After an entity of mysterious origin annihilates the world’s population causing those who observe it to take their lives, Sebastián and his daughter begin their own great adventure of survival in Barcelona. A sequel to the movie that had no relation at all to the previous movie is a bold choice for Netflix and “Bird Box Barcelona” has a distinct feeling of a movie that was made only so Netflix could check off a language requirement or two to sooth local government’s nerves about the big American company coming in and steamrolling local culture. Is it a good film? It’s...
Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a mother and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety. Of course I had to watch the movie again after I read the book and having just read the original story I was primed to see the narrative and structural changes that were made to the story, all of which worked in service of the medium that they were in, with Tom changing from just a close friend to a lover and Malorie having a gun and using a blanket at times to be...
Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence. Have you seen the first LEGO movie from 2014 yet? Or how about it’s sequel in 2019? If you’ve seen either of those, this will be a slightly less subtle version of those stories about a toy leaving it’s realm to find itself but being betrayed by a loved one while a nefarious Will Ferrell lurks about doing nefarious things that end up not being all that nefarious but are still somewhat concerning. I don’t necessarily have the vocabulary to positively say this is a polemic...
IF YOU’VE SEEN WHAT’S OUT THERE… IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE Malorie raises the children the only way she can: indoors, with the doors locked, the curtains closed, and mattresses nailed over the windows. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall, but soon she will have to wake them and blindfold them. Today they will risk everything. Today they will leave the house. Josh Malerman’s New York Times bestselling Bird Box is a terrifying psychological thriller that will haunt you long after reading. Bird Box is a quick read, it only took me a couple nights of reading before...
The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. Not having seen him in any of the trailers, it took me a solid 5 minutes to realize how large of a part Robert Downey Jr was going to have in the story, and I think we’re all a little better that they didn’t lean on him in the marketing. “Oppenheimer” the film is a mostly true story of how the Manhattan project was conceived and run with a large part of the scientific and practical testing happening under J. Robert Oppenheimer’s...
Doctors and nurses at the intensive care unit of a New Orleans hospital struggle with treating patients during Hurricane Katrina when the facility is without power for 5 days. This is a series that spends 5 episodes outlining how absolutely terrible and dire the situation was at a hospital with no power, no food, no water, no real security, and no plan to get patients out locally and no real support from their corporate offices, then turns around and spends another 3 episodes vilifying a single doctor for the decisions that she may or may not have made during the...
When the Hale-Bopp soared across the sky in 1997, Amy Rose thought it was the start of an amazing new future. Instead, it brought news of a horrible tragedy at the Heaven’s Gate compound just down the road. Amy had always known there was something off about the community she grew up in. I bought this under the assumption that the marketing material that mentioned this young girl lived with a cult that fully believed the happenings of Star Trek had actually happened in some way meant that Trek was going to be more than just a one panel side...
