thewidescreen

THEWIDESCREEN review of season one of Arrested Development.   The season that started it all. Back in 2003. Fresh off last Friday’s debut of the 5th season part 2 on Netflix, we take a look at some stand out episodes from season one of Arrested.   “Bringing Up Buster” this episode features Buster going to work with Michael, after Buster’s mom pleads with Michael to let him go with him to work so he’ll stop being such a mamas boy. Then Buster ends up interfering with the Bluth company, his yawns getting in the way of major corporate decisions. One of the first intros to the weird character that is Buster, whose hook hand is the least weird thing about him. Fun episode. Quick. You only need to see half of it to get your rocks on.   “Key Decisions” also known as the episode where Gob pulls a promotional publicity stunt by willingly going into prison. Upstaged by his soap star girlfriend, Gob decides to go into the same prison his father is in to e...

THEWIDESCREEN review:    Season 2 of ABC’s The Middle.   We’ll mention some season 2 classic episodes. This is a great season. Some gems include;   “Foreign Exchange” This episode features Franky, the mom, being sick of her kids, Axl, Brick and Sue fighting, so she gets the school to send them a foreign exchange student from some asian location, who then turns out to be a dud. Now the family is stuck with a terrible, boring foreign exchange student. Who never eats the frozen waffles Frankie gives him. The contrast between this funny asian dude and this midwestern american family is funny. An early season 2 gem.   Another highlight of season 2, episode titled “Mothers Day II” where Frankie, sick of being a mom, takes a day off to just do her, but quickly squanders the day away and time’s up on her free day. Dissapointed and in tears she pleads to get another shot at a day all to herself.   “The Bridge” is another season 2 cla...

A Double-Feature, A THEWIDESCREEN Review Of Season 3 of Lost.   Episodes “Flashes Before Your Eyes” and “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead.” “Flashes Before Your Eyes” This episode single-handedly redeems season 3. Season 3 of Lost was always remembered by me as the worst season of Lost. Worst than Mr. Ecko in Season 2 and the others. But damn, this episode, “Flashes Before Your Eyes” blows it out of the water. It’s no surprise as it is written by co-creator Damon Lindelof. Who’s busy launching HBO’s new Watchmen adaptation. It also features Drew Goddard as a writer. Drew Goddard is responsible for Cabin in the Woods and The Martian but also of other great Lost episodes. “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, is a time travel episode. We see what happened to Desmond after he turned the key in the hatch. He went back in time and relieved the events leading up to him being shipwrecked on the island. He appears miracously in London, proceeds to go to work like nothing has ...

THEWIDESCREEN review of Gilmore Girls season 2 episode “Teach Me Tonight”.   The Gilmore Girls is a show to sit and watch. You sip it. This is not a tv show for you to fast-forward. Otherwise you will miss Amy Sherman-Palladino’s great dialogue.   In this episode, it features Lorelai being fed up with the towns choice for town square movie in the open, so she decides to do something about it.   She gets a binder from the guy in charge, with movies to choose from, all the movies suck, they are lifetime movies or worse and not famous.   After going trough the whole episode struggling for which movie to choose, she just picks the one she hated from the begining and the one they’ve picked for the past three years.   This tv show really gets small time life right. It really feels like it takes place in a small town, when in reality it takes places on the Warner Bros studio Lot in California. But the town charact...

The Sopranos, David Chase, Season 2, 1999 Welcome to a The Widescreen take on season 2 of The Sopranos. Most places now review television on an episode by episode base. So we thought we’d do something different and give you our take on binging the whole second season. Either that or we’re just lazy. Any way without much further ado, here is our take and tidbits on The Sopranos, Season 2.   This season features Tony’s kid going trough his Nihilism phase. Getting into Nietzsche. Early planting of the family depression the plagues Tony’s family. Think about when he tried to off himself with a cinder block in the family pool.   Cristopher is a different kind of rat than Adrianna. Adrianna is a straight up rat, talking to the FBI, but Christopher is the kind of rat that gives away mafia secrets to get in with Jon Favreau. He is the one to write a tell-all script that gets picked up and turned into a book, spilling and blabbing everything just like Adrianna. ...

This is a The Widescreen mini review for Legally Blonde 2 (2003) This movie is far better than it should be. Can you believe there’s a sequel to Legally Blonde. And it might just be better than the first. We still get the same arch from the first film, no one believes in the blonde, but she’s gonna prove everyone wrong, but we also get a story about Elle trying to defend her dog.   That’s right, this film is all about Elle going to Washington to try to stop make-up companies from trying out their products on animals.   The film is good, but loses it’s way halfway trough the middle, as we are just waiting for the house bill, banning testing on animals, to pass. Bu those first 45 minutes or so are golden. This is the definition of a “Blockbuster” movie. The kind of film that makes up for a bad day, that doesn’t require much from you, and hits all the right spots. I almost had to worry about returning it, before the three day period at Blockbuster is ov...

The following is an opinion piece on Green Book, Academy award winner for best picture. Green Book is the story of Tony "The Lip”, a NY bouncer who is hired by piano prodigy Don Shirley, to be his chauffeur/bodyguard, as Shirley tours the deep south giving a concert tour. The movie follows both men as they get to know each other and their struggles, as well as revealing truths about themselves and their character.   The story is told from Tony's “The Lip” perspective. He's an Italian-American from the Bronx with an insatiable appetite and a devastating left hook. He loves his wife and his kids, lives day to day, is fond of cigarettes and gambling, and is just enough of a good guy to avoid working for the mob.   Viggo Mortensen bring Tony to life, with an outlandish accent and a potbelly to go along with it. He is a tough guy with a heart of gold personality. All of this is well and good, but watching the film, I couldn't help but think someone ma...

It is hard to get second opportunities in life, but it is not that hard in sports, especially in football. As JFK once said, there are no second acts in life.   In this hilarious sports/comedy movie, Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) is a beat up old college QB that gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he is picked up by the Washington Sentinels pro football team and their new coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman). The reason? because the real NFL players are on strike and the show has to go on, so Gene Hackman finds a rag-tag team of outsiders, the replacements, to take the pro-players place, some of these replacements include John Favreau, a widescreen favorite. So this Falco fellow along with one of the most diverse groups of has beens, convicts, ex college players, degenerate gamblers and even a priest, gets signed for the remainder of the season, in order to cover for the overrated starters who went into the strike.  Throughout the film, these team of "...

Season 6 Episode 2, another Seinfeld classic. Showing what George does best being cheap. The one where this happened (George didn't get thanked for purchasing a big salad) So this happened (George had to set the record straight and complaint to Elaine that it was him in fact who payed for the big salad) Which led to this (Costanza's girl finds out that he was taking credit for the purchasing and dumps him) Grade: Widescreen. Personal episode favorite of show, episode is written by co- creator  Larry David.

The one where this happened, (Ross ate kiwi pie, he's allergic) So this happened, (Chandler and Joey took care of the baby whilst) which led to this, (They leave the baby on the bus) Grade: 4:3 good early Friends stuff. Did they find the baby? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDt6Jr2kcr4

NBC's Superstore is renewed for a 5th season to air next year. If you've yet to catch the show, by The Office writers, you should check it out.

A widescreen review of The Wonder Years “Christmas Episode”.   In this episode from season 2, Kevin Arnold is trying to convince his dad of buying him a color TV for Christmas. The Wonder Years was set in the 60’s, so the story is set just around the time when color televisions had first come out.   But as his dad says, “TV’s cost money and money don’t grow on trees.” TV’s cost 400 bucks back then. Towards the middle of the episode they visit a supermarket and we see rows and rows of color tv’s. But the dad never caves in and acts like a scrooge not getting them the tv set for Christmas. In a classic The Wonder Years voice over, we learn that they indeed get the color TV, two years later.   Grade: Widescreen.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKlBVZs6rm4

The Shawshank Redemption Year: 1994 Directed by: Frank Darabont Written by: Stephen King, Frank Deborant When I try to explain people about the existence of this movie I really don’t know where to start. I have absolutely no idea how I ended up watching this movie because I was pretty young when it came out but I know it turned to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Probably one of the most underrated movies and one of Hollywood’s all time classics, an adaptation from Stephen King’s novel “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. The movie tells the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker wrongfully convicted for the murder of his wife and his lover. Tim Robins gives the performance of a life time, he drags you into the character and helps you live through his eyes a terrific story of betrayals, hopes, dreams and friendships in which the good turn bad, the bad turn good. Tim Robbins does great work in Robert Altman's "The Player" famous for it...

Chavoruco Reloaded A The Widescreen review of Mission Impossible Fallout There is still a lot of juice left in this franchise. It should be impossible that a 56 year old scientologist should still be making such amazing action films, especially in a franchise that the first two installments were average. Yet since ghost protocol, we now have three of the best action films in recent memory. Mission Impossible: Fallout is a direct sequel from the previous installment, with Ethan Hunt searching for missing plutonium that could bring about a nuclear terrorist attack. He is joined with his usual IMF team and a CIA assassin (Henry Cavill). Chavoruco means in spanish, "old but young", and that embodies Tom Cruise, who has aged like a fine wine. What follows is a pedal to the metal non-stop action film, one that flows from setpiece to setpiece without letting the audience breathe a lot. The plot is streamlined and the action is relentless, and the result...

Welcome to another wide screen mini review, "What about Bob" Season 1 Episode 17, This is another Home Improvement early season one gem Bob vila is Tim "the tool man" Taylor's number one enemy, Tim Allen spends the whole episode trying to match wits with him until finally killing him with a soft blow to the head on his show with a 4 x 3 wooden pillar. This is a great episode.  For a show that has aged well. For those not in the know, In the 90's home improvement had better ratings than Seinfeld and comes from sitcom veterans writes Carmen Finestra.   15 5 swing away  Grade: Widescreen.  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2323gg