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Category: Sam Reviews

The Night Before (2015) – Review

The Night Before hits all the right notes of a classic holiday film combined with the profane humor and bromance we’ve come to expect and love about writer/star Seth Rogen. Self-aware and mature about its immaturity, the film is comfort food of the finest order, pizza by way of Michael…

The Walking Dead 6.6: Always Accountable – Review

Here’s The Walking Dead‘s problem: it can’t maintain narrative momentum to save its slow, shambling undead life. It, along with shoddy character work in places, are what keep The Walking Dead from enteringĀ the upper echelon of prestige genre entertainment, something Game of Thrones did on the way to its recent…

The Walking Dead 6.5: Now – Review

As inevitably happens on The Walking Dead, the action happens in fits and bursts. And when they end, its with the jolt of a slammed brake pedal. Just like Season 5A, the first three episodes are action-packed before descending into lackluster soap opera and melodrama in the next five. The…

Spectre (2015) – Review

Spectre, the 24th film featuring British superspy James Bond and the fourth featuring Daniel Craig in the role, is about as close to a greatest hits album as a film can get. However, also like greatest hits albums, it’s repetitive, insubstantial and masturbatory. Instead of celebrating or playing with the…

The Walking Dead 6.4: Here’s Not Here – Review

The importance of Morgan Jones, played with wonderful range by veteran British actor Lennie James, to The Walking Dead is belied his limited screentime; he only appeared in five episodes prior to becoming a series regular this season and two of those appearances were post-credit cameos. The enjoyment of Morgan’s…

The Walking Dead 6.3: Thank You – Review

Glenn’s dead! Or, at least, that’s what the show wants us to think after the coward Nicholas committed suicide, dragging Glenn down into a horde of zombies where he appeared to be eaten. Appeared being the operative word. See, I’m not so convinced that the show’s last remaining beaconĀ of morality…

Bone Tomahawk (2015) – Review

The great of thing about the rarefied genre of “cannibal Western” is that it’s sells itself right up front. Do I even need to provide you with more than the picture of Kurt Russell’s whiskers and the phrase “cannibal Western” to get your interest in Bone Tomahawk? The title is…

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) – Review

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension has the unenviable task of being a franchise finale, responsible for satisfactorily wrapping up the six(6!) film series about haunted houses and the idiots who film them. It’s doesn’t really do anything particularly well in light of the previous films’ repeatedly running into the ground…

Bridge of Spies (2015) – Review

As indomitably towering in its director, star and writers, Bridges of Spies is stubbornly old-fashioned both in concept and in execution. Co-written by the Coen brothers, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks all add up, in theory and in practice (mostly) to be a winning combination. It’s simple…

The Walking Dead 6.2: JSS – Review

Beautifully constructed television at its finest, the sixth season of The Walking Dead has come out firing on all cylinders. Whether it was the zombie-heavy hour last week that featured the A-Team characters or the Wolf attack on the B-Team back in Alexandria that defined this hour, the pace is…