Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: May 8, 2009 Written by John Enbom Directed by Bryan Gordon I have good news, then bad news, then good news again. First off, this is – as promised – the best episode of season 1, perhaps of the entire series (I know I’m backtracking but I […]
Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: May 1, 2009 Written by John Enbom Directed by Fred Savage I’m going to lay my chips on the table right now. I think season 1, episode 8 of Party Down is the best episode they ever put out. You may notice that we’re not talking about that […]
Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: April 24, 2009 Written by John Enbom Directed by Bryan Gordon You know how nostalgia can color a memory and make the entire thing seem golden and rosy, rubbing away any of the more negative parts? And remember how culture can progress over time and make […]
Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: April 17, 2009 Written by John Enbom Directed by Fred Savage At “Sin Say Shun Awards Afterparty,” we reach the midpoint of season 1 of Party Down. After two somewhat rocky episodes (by the standards of this show, meaning we weren’t even glancing at anything below “B-” […]
Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: April 10, 2009 Written by Rob Thomas Directed by Bryan Gordon “Investors Dinner” is is a transitional episode of Party Down, which is about as fun as it sounds sometimes, but bear with me. It’s following the model that the previous three episodes established, pitting our […]
Season 1 Willow Canyon Homeowners Annual Party (20 March, 2009) B+ California College Conservative Union Caucus (27 March, 2009) A- Pepper McMasters Single Seminar (3 April, 2009) B- Investors Dinner (10 April, 2009) B+ Sin Say Shun Awards Afterparty (17 April, 2009) A- Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen (24 April, 2009) B Brandix Corporate Retreat (1 […]
Return to the complete Party Down index First Airdate: March 20, 2009 Written by John Enbom, Dan Etheridge, & Paul Rudd Directed by Fred Savage It is the dawn of television here on Alternate Ending. Although movies will remain the main focus of the site, with the influx of exciting new writers around these parts, the scope […]
Ingmar Bergman, as we all know, stopped making movies with Fanny and Alexander. His next movie, two years later, was After the Rehearsal, and this was a point of much friction between him and his foreign distributor, Triumph Films. For Bergman, it was extremely important that nothing else he ever made after Fanny and Alexander be […]
You are Ingmar Bergman, one of the most famous motion picture directors in the history of the medium, and you have just completed Fanny and Alexander, a monumental declaration of your intention to be done with the art form, having said all you will ever say with it. And critics have agreed, anointing the film […]
Reviews of all episodes: Episode 1: “Mangrove” (15 November 2020) Episode 2: “Lovers Rock” (22 November 2020) Episode 3: “Red, White and Blue” (29 November 2020) Episode 4: “Alex Wheatle” (6 December 2020) Episode 5: “Education” (13 December 2020)
Education, the fifth and final entry in director Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology is almost certainly the most straightforward: as a narrative, a delivery system for a political message, as an aesthetic object. Whether this is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder; for myself, I will not pretend to be a […]
The consensus of opinion, as far as I can tell, is that Alex Wheatle, the fourth episode of Small Axe, is also the weakest, granting an exceptionally high lower bound for “weakness”. I don’t agree, but it’s not hard to understand why somebody might come to that conclusion: the 67-minute story (written and directed, as […]
