Posts by Christian Long

[rating=7.00] “This ain’t the place to be” belts out frontman Peter Niven at the very start of “It’s A Mess,” the opening track of the Atom Age’s latest album Hot Shame. He’s only slightly wrong in his sentiment, as the band has crafted a solid collection of riff-heavy rock ‘n’ roll songs, but seems to […]

[rating=5.00] “Pilot” Since plans for a spinoff of The Walking Dead started circulating earlier this year, there was a lot of questioning its necessity. The show itself nets maybe one or two good episodes per every season, and a handful of well-crafted scenes aside from that, meaning it’s genuinely entertaining only a little more than ⅛ […]

[rating=2.00] “Flamingos” Like a child dumping out all its toys just before bedtime, Ballers has found trapped in the corner of its bedroom just in time for the season finale. I’d elaborate further, but somehow the show was able to portray my exact feelings of this show within the opening minute. This is where the GIF […]

[rating=3.00] “Head-On” Despite some hints of legitimacy halfway through the season, it’s becoming clear that Ballers is not only ill-conceived, it gives the impression that each individual scene was written by one committee, filmed by another, then edited together by a third. With no overall story arc, it’s simply a half-assed assembly of buzzword actors […]

[3.00] “Gaslighting” How appropriate that this week’s episode starts with a car wreck. To clarify, it’s a commercial within the show, and seemingly has nothing to do with the rest of what transpires over the next 28 minutes, but it seems to convey the direction of this show in general. After being worried about his test […]

It was the kind of fallout that was an inevitability. After relative unknown auteur Nic Pizzolatto, along with director Cary Fukunaga and stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, managed to capture lightning in a bottle with the debut season of True Detective. Rumors of season two began before the first was even resolved, namely that […]

One of the most influential figures of the 20th century, John Lennon evolved from sharp-talking pop-rocker to cynical idealist in his time growing up in the public eye. With such a resonating presence, both with and without the Beatles, filmmakers have been portraying Lennon on screen since the late 1960s. We look at some of […]

[rating=4.00] “Ends” Starting off with an urn being delivered with all the delicate care of your average script for Ballers, “Ends” begins profoundly on the wrong foot, assuming that anyone in the audience would remember Roddney, one of two characters who died a couple minutes into the pilot. Appropriately, and what’s probably too clever to be […]

[rating=5.00] “Everything is Everything” The short-lived burst of optimism I felt over the show’s brief, but notable, improvement last week (however slight) has waned slightly. Mostly due to the show’s inability to stick to a primary storyline, leaving a convoluted, messy attempt at a narrative in it’s wake. While last week’s ended on the semi-cliffhanger that […]

[rating=6.00] “Machete Charge” It took a lot longer than it needed to, but Ballers finally started getting somewhere last night. Nowhere jaw-dropping or profound, but at least some popcorn-level entertainment, instead of the unpopped kernels we’ve been getting the past too many weeks. As Spencer, along with Joe, woo yet another new client (in a scene […]

[rating=4.00] “Heads Will Roll” I’ll say this about Ballers, it knows how to make it’s antagonists unlikable. Granted, it doesn’t do a good job of making any of its other characters likable, but it sure does make you despise its show’s villains. This week’s installment of the steadily disappointing sports fantasy/circle jerk opens with a flashback […]

For a presentation that didn’t have a new trailer to debut and very little new footage to share, it’s kind of amazing that the Star Wars panel at this years San Diego Comic Con was able to satisfy even the most staunch and cynical fan (*raises hand*) that The Force Awakens was, in fact, going […]

[rating=3.00] “Move the Chains” It’s easy to forgive a clumsy pilot. The tone is off a bit, the characters’ importance can get shuffled around, sometimes replaced or removed entirely. It’s even easy to forgive a faltering second episode, though it’s usually done in holding out hope that a show is at least close to finding its […]

[rating=4.00] “Raise Up” “It was luke warm, small, and covered with a few extras that were all pretty much a mush of stuff.” That line would serve an apt review of the Mark Wahlberg-produced Ballers, a show that struggles to find it’s way. It happens to be a Yelp review of the Mark Wahlberg-produced restaurant, Wahlburgers, […]

[rating=5.00] “Pilot” It’s a bold move for a comedy to open its pilot episode with a fatal car crash of two unestablished characters. It’s a bolder move to refer to Ballers as a comedy after watching it struggle to carry itself through those long, painful thirty minutes. Dwayne (do we still have to add “The Rock” […]

[rating=2.00] “Mother’s Mercy” There’s an SNL skit from a few years back featuring Andy Samberg as a hormone-riddled, prepubescent Game of Thrones consultant whose job it is to gleefully up the amount sex on the show. When it aired, its second season was widely criticized for its sex scenes that were over-the-top to the point […]

[rating=7.00] “The Dance of Dragons” “They hurt little girls everywhere in the world,” Cersei told Prince Oberyn last season, all too knowingly. Now, being said in season four, it stands a testament to the last days when Game of Thrones revelled in its own subtlety and nuance, which has been forgone in favor of an assembly-line […]

[rating=5.00] “Hardhome” After being assured over and over (and over) for the past 5 years, it finally looks like winter isn’t just coming, it’s most certainly here. While its cinematic handling left some do be desired, it was a welcome payoff by a show that has, of late, excelled at little else aside from testing the […]

[rating=7.00] “The Gift” While there were several pieces moving and one rather surprising twist at the end, it’s the world the show encompasses–particularly the early half focusing entirely on The North—that shows the severity of the conditions these characters live, and the consequences for those decisions made in such circumstances. As an episode, it largely works, […]

[rating=3.00] “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” There are moments of significance to be had in the sixth episode of Game of Thrones’ fifth season, though it’s mostly due to the longevity of show’s characters we’ve spent years invested in. The gradation of Arya Stark, Jorah Mormont, and Tyrion Lannister has proved satisfying to varying degrees, as long-running plotlines […]