Reaction Shots

It’s been awhile since I wrote about the Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things . The main idea was to look at the series as a long-form narrative film, where that one - or others like it - had a definite end in sight as stated by the show runners. I touched on Twin Peaks: the Return later, but for the most part, I don’t review or analyze series here. That said, the first theatrical experience I’ve had this year is the series finale to Stranger Things , Stranger Things: the Rightside Up . This time, I’m treating it like a film because it got a cinematic relearn and I think it deserves a look as the series has maintained a significant cultural profile. The monkey wrench is that it is just one episode from a series and therefore, were I to do a recap, I would be here far longer than I care to be. Instead, I’m going to critique it like any other film based on thematic and narrative content but without much in the way of describing the action; so  - SPOILERS. One fo the primary issues wi...

I really don’t know how many times I’ve seen The Shop Around the Corner , but I have only seen It’s a Wonderful Life a handful of times and I think the last time I saw it, Reagan was president. Both are Christmas holiday staples and for good reason, but or maybe, and I keep bumping up to a subtext in one that is practically text or context in the other. In It’s a Wonderful Life , we run smack dab into capitalist exploitation and the fight against it writ large. In The Shop Around the Corner , it is not, by any stretch, a main theme, but how the workers are treated struck a nerve with me early on and continues to be struck. I don’t think a recap for either is needed as both are pretty etched in the popular consciousness, but while one is more fantastical, the other is very much rom-com. The one focuses on George Bailey, whose self-sacrificed and doing the right thing leads him afoul of Mr. Potter and perhaps, fate itself. When his uncle fails to deposit the $8,000 to cover the Bailey’s...

Rob Reiner (1947-2025) If you were around in the early seventies, you couldn’t miss All in the Family. Norman Lear had created something unique. It wasn’t just a that this was a sitcom with larger issues on its mind; it was both genuinely thoughtful and ridiculously funny. Regardless of how easily described each of the principles were, none of them were caricatures or stereotypes. Archie was a bigot, sure, but he loved his family very much and would occasionally show a gentle side when you least expected it. Edith was the scatterbrain ditz, but she could act with steel resolve and stand up for herself. Gloria was the daughter chafing at still living under her parents’ roof with her husband until they could move out and might have been the most well-rounded character, not being exaggerated or broadly drawn to begin with. And then there was her husband, Mike. Mike was the embodiment of the bleeding heart liberal, the very stereotype (whoops, was I wrong?) of the suburban radical who cou...