Artist: The Looking
Genre: Covers, Folk, Indie, Pop, Rock
Songs For A Traveler is the latest release from The Looking (aka Todd Carter). In it the operatic (he’s performed opera at places like Carnegie Hall) Carter is joined by a full band to explore songs from across the American landscape. This includes several older covers like “Long Black Veil”.
Directed by: Shawn Piller
Written by: Scott Lew
Starring: Harold Perrineau, Katee Sackhoff, Lauren Fray, Michelle Trachtenberg, Seth Green, William Baldwin
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Indie, Suspense
MPAA Rating: R
Sexy Evil Genius is about a woman (Sackhoff; Battlestar Galactica) who brings a group of ex’s together at a bar one night after not being in contact with them for a while. The ex’s don’t know each other and through conversation we learn along with them that she’s been a different person around each of them and possibly might be a murderer. When she arrives with a new beau (Baldwin; Backdraft) things get very tense as everyone tries to figure out her true motivations.
Starring: Adam Cayton-Holland, Aja Naomi King, Andrew Orvedahl, Bebe Neuwirth, Brigette Davidovici, Charlie Saxton, Cheyenne Jackson, Christopher Masterson, Clark Johnson, Constance Wu, Dustin Ingram, Izabela Vidovic, Jameeliah Garrett, Jeffrey Tambor, Joe Dinicol, John Goodman, Jon Daly, Karan Soni, Kirk Ward, Kyle Kinane, Laila Robins, Lily Sparks, Maiara Walsh, Margo Harshman, Mark Consuelos, Marque Richardson, Matt Malloy, Rory Scovel, Tyler Ross, William Sadler
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Musical, Political, Satire, Sci-fi, Supernatural
Network: Amazon
This past Friday, Amazon released a slew of pilots on their Prime Instant Video service (free to Prime subscribers, who also get free 2 day shipping and a Kindle lending library among other perks) in order to compete with other subscription streaming video services, mainly Netflix. These are only pilots but the interesting thing here is that they are letting the viewers vote which goes to series. You can check them all out for yourself at amazonoriginals.com. Right now they only did a bunch of comedies and kids shows. I didn’t bother with the kids shows, but I’ve now seen all the comedies and can give my first thoughts on these shows. These are going to be short reviews because they are only pilots after all, I’ve explained in the past the difficulties in judging a series by one episode, but also there’s a bunch of them to get through. So let’s get started.
Written by: Jen Kirkman
Genre: Autobiography, Comedy, Non-fiction
I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids is comedian Jen Kirkman’s (Chelsea Lately, Drunk History) first book. In it she talks about her struggles being a woman who chooses to not have children and how other people just cannot come to terms with this decision. She guides us through her past in a series of stories about her family, friends, work, past relationships, and of course random strangers who insist she must want children.
Written by: Warren Ellis
Genre: Action, Crime, Detective
Gun Machine is the latest novel by comics mastermind Warren Ellis, his second following the incredible Crooked Little Vein
Written by: Alfred Ryan Nerz
Genre: Autobiography, Non-fiction
Marijuanamerica: One Man’s Quest to Understand America’s Dysfunctional Love Affair With Weed is just the book I’d been looking for. To give you a bit of backstory, I’m pretty pro-legalization but I’m weary of people on both sides of the argument and their motivations. Author Alfred Ryan Nerz, who recounts his own history with the drug right up front as well as any motivations behind his actions. And it turns out he was in a sort of similar place as far as wanting to get to the reality behind both sides hype as well as explore the very weird relationship America has with it. So he went out and started talking to people and doing research. And the outcome is a wonderful book that’s brimming with facts (with a full section at the back of sources for them), but is still extremely entertaining and a wonderful look inside places most of us will never go.
Directed by: Colin Trevorrow
Written by: Derek Connolly
Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Jenica Bergere, Karan Soni, Mark Duplass
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Indie, Romantic Comedy, Sci-fi
MPAA Rating: R
Safety Not Guaranteed is about a lot of things. But the very basics are that a man places an ad in a Seattle newspaper searching for a time travel partner. The actual ad is in the poster above, and is where the movie gets it’s title. A reporter (Johnson; New Girl) who has ulterior motives takes two interns with him to the vacation spot where he used to spend his summers as a teen and also where the P.O. Box in the ad is. The interns are two outcasts, one our main protagonist, Darius (Aubrey Plaza; Parks & Recreation) who has been stuck since her mother’s death, along with the nerdy Arnau (Soni). After making contact with the seemingly crazy Kenneth (Duplass; The League, Zero Dark Thirty) Darius forms a strange bond with the man who just wants to go back to correct a past mistake.
Written by: Chloe Neill
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Supernatural
House Rules is the latest in the Chicagoland Vampire series by author Chloe Neill. Things are changing for new vampire Merit and her house, Cadogan. On the verge of officially becoming rogue vampires themselves, 2 very well liked vampires mysteriously disappear and the evidence doesn’t point to a pretty picture. The GP is heading to town to separate Cadogan from the house system, and Merit is about to join a secret organization in the interest of protecting her fellow vampires.
Posted on December 20th, 2012 by Jason F
My Drunk Kitchen: Season One collects the first 11 episodes of the hit YouTube series for the first time on DVD. It’s actually more like 14 or 15 episodes though as some special holiday episodes are available separately on another part of the DVD and another is included in yet another part of the DVD. The 11 episodes designated as being season one all have commentary by creator and star Hannah Hart. Anyway since this is a web show I didn’t put it under the regular “TV Review” guideline, but that’s what it’s closest to. Now if you click that link to the YouTube page you can view all of the episodes for free on the web. Hannah also included a special thanks on the DVD for paying money for something you can get for free. But I’m putting up a review of it for the same reason. To essentially tell you all about what you’ll get and as an artist myself try to make a case for paying for things like this and why it’s important.
Written by: Adrianne Ambrose, Monica Gallagher
Genre: Comedy, Comic, Romantic Comedy
Glitter Kiss is a graphic novel about teenage girl Tinka. After a secret fling falls apart she seeks out a fortune teller and winds up accidentally working some magic on the boys who wronged her. Like turning them into girls.