- The Mob Doctor Recap: ‘Complications’ (Season 1, Episode 6)
Posted on 13 Nov 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
We got to see Grace being a badass, and the curiously intense Oedipal bond between Constantine and Grace got plenty of air time as well. As these were the elements of the pilot that first grabbed me, I’m happy.
- The Mob Doctor Recap: ‘Legacy’ (Season 1, Episode 5)
Posted on 06 Nov 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
And The Mob Doctor’s back! For now, at least. Judging by the previews, next week’s episode triggers the big showdown between Constantine and Moretti. So tonight’s episode is one of those calm-before-the-storm episodes in which not much happens.
- Vegas Recap: ‘Solid Citizens’ (Season 1, Episode 5)
Posted on 31 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
So, I suspect the question “What happened in the fifth episode of Vegas?” is not uppermost in many people’s minds this week. On the other hand, the show does provide a getaway to someplace where it’s warm, dry, sunny, and fifty years in the past.
- Vegas Recap: ‘(Il)Legitimate’ (Season 1, Episode 4)
Posted on 24 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
Savino’s got surprises for everyone. His expansion plans have been nixed by Angelo back in Chicago, but he’s not letting that stop him. He wants to buy out a fading casino with large lot, the Tumbleweed, and he wants to pay for it with a loan. From a bank.
- Vegas Recap: ‘All That Glitters’ (Season 1, Episode 3)
Posted on 10 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
Three weeks in, I’ll admit that Vegas is growing on me, even though tonight it displayed one of the common weaknesses of period dramas – portraying the smart and/or sympathetic characters as seeing things just as we enlightened folk of the future do.
- The Mob Doctor Recap: ‘Change of Heart’ (Season 1, Episode 4)
Posted on 09 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
We end with Moretti planning his triumphant return to Chicago, but we’ll have to wait to see it – next week it’s major league baseball, and the next new episode doesn’t air until November 5. I was surprisingly disappointed to hear that – for all its flaws, the show’s convinced me it’s got a story to tell.
- Vegas Recap: ‘Money Plays’ (Season 1, Episode 2)
Posted on 03 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
In its second week, Cowboys vs. Gangsters!, aka Vegas, seems to be finding its feet.
- The Mob Doctor Recap: ‘Protect and Serve’ (Season 1, Episode 3)
Posted on 02 Oct 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
As in previous weeks, the “mob” part continues to be more compelling than the “doctor” part. But this week, the two are intertwined with a certain elegance in a solid episode with a big reveal at the end.
- Vegas Recap: Pilot Episode
Posted on 26 Sep 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
And…I’ll be honest. Of the two new shows I’m recapping, at this point I actually like The Mob Doctor better. Maybe that’s because I went into it half-expecting to howl with derision, and was pleasantly surprised, while I was kind of hoping Vegas would be awesome. It isn‘t.
- The Mob Doctor Recap: ‘Family Secrets’ (Season 1, Episode 2)
Posted on 25 Sep 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
William Forsythe as Constantine is by far the best thing about this show, a mix of slow-burning paternal concern and understated menace; he could, and maybe should, be his own show.
- The Mob Doctor Recap: Pilot Episode
Posted on 18 Sep 2012 in Movies & TV, Television
Dr. Grace Devlin (Jordana Spiro) has promised her services to Southside crime boss Paul Moretti (Michael Rapaport) as a way of paying off her brother’s gambling debts. The parts you may have seen in previews are pretty much all over before the opening credits roll – this is a very busy hour of television, and Grace clearly puts a lot of miles on her Jeep Cherokee, commuting at breakneck pace between her two lives.
- Book Review: Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
Posted on 04 Sep 2012 in Books, Fiction Reviews
The feelings and experiences that preoccupy Straub are pregnancy and motherhood, friendship and domestic partnership. The repeated evocation of bodily experience and physical closeness is one of the most marked features of her writing.
- American Mythologies: Grant Wood at the RNC
Posted on 04 Sep 2012 in After Image, Art
But, the painting tells us, to impose order is also to fictionalize, to distort. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind in a season when we are being presented with carefully packaged versions of history, complete with carefully articulated morals.
- Book Review: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes
Posted on 29 Aug 2012 in Books, Classics, Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews
As befits a former poet, Hughes’s writing is economical yet stylish, atmospheric without being fussy. And as with almost any vintage detective novel, there are many pleasures to be had in the details of an earlier America.
- Remembering Robert Hughes – Re-watching American Visions
Posted on 23 Aug 2012 in After Image, Art
On another note entirely, the eighth and final episode offers the enduring pleasures of Hughes’s prickly encounter with Jeff Koons: “A kitten in a giant sock. Tell me about it.”
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