Seth Levi - Forces of Geek

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Nostalgia Overload

It’s feeling a lot like the 1980s this month. Just the other day it was announced that Harrison Ford was offered the chance to...

Seth LeviMay 22, 2014

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THOR For President

At the end of the most recent Thor movie, The Dark World, Thor’s father informs the title character that the people of the Nine...

Seth LeviMay 7, 2014

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How To Know If A Movie Is Great

We’re at the point where all of the 2013 Oscar nominees have made it to home video and are now popping up on premium...

Seth LeviApril 23, 2014

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Was PHANTOM MENACE Lucas’ Second Attempt to Remake THE HIDDEN FORTRESS?

I was recently watching the new Criterion Blu-ray of Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress — admittedly the first time since the Criterion DVD was...

Seth LeviApril 9, 2014

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Rewriting ‘Game of Thrones’

Game of Thrones is about to find itself in a unique place among TV adaptions — running out of source material while there are...

Seth LeviMarch 26, 2014

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Hollywood’s Self-Loathing

Last week’s Oscars show played out as it normally does: speeches and montages of the Hollywood film industry insisting on its self-importance — its...

Seth LeviMarch 13, 2014

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HOUSE OF FOILS

House of Cards has taken a lot of flack this season, but for the wrong reasons. Yes, the show is extremely pulpy, over the...

Seth LeviFebruary 26, 2014

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DOWNTON ABBEY Takes a Conservative Turn

I admit that I’m an unlikely fan of Downton Abbey. Period costume dramas involving storylines about unrequited love are not usually my thing. But...

Seth LeviFebruary 12, 2014

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The Moral Obligation to Moralize Pop Culture

I recently got into an argument with a friend about if The Wolf of Wall Street glamorized the life and times of Jordan Belfort....

Seth LeviJanuary 29, 2014

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How Not to Make an Antihero Sympathetic

Antiheroes are the protagonists de jour in Hollywood. This awards season alone two of the top contenders are about con artists: American Hustle and...

Seth LeviJanuary 15, 2014

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Action Movies: Why So Serious?

Looking back on 2013, I increasingly doubt that the action movies I grew up watching — Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic...

Seth LeviDecember 31, 2013

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Google Chromecast: You Don’t Need One, But It’s Still Necessary

Earlier this summer Google joined the very, very crowded marketplace of internet video streaming hardware devices with Chromecast. For the average users it’s not...

Seth LeviDecember 19, 2013

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The Not So Art of The Long Game

The new trend in Hollywood screenwriting is intricate plots that depend on characters that possess uncanny foresight. Plot after plot in movies and TV...

Seth LeviDecember 11, 2013

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The Elitism of Carrie Underwood Apologists

Defenders of Carrie Underwood’s wooden acting on NBC’s live broadcast of The Sound of Music pretty much all make this argument: Yes, her acting...

Seth LeviDecember 9, 2013

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Ghettoization of Race on TV

Earlier this month Kerry Washington’s appearance on Saturday Night Live kicked off yet another brouhaha about TV being too white — a controversy as...

Seth LeviNovember 20, 2013

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ROMAN POLANSKI: A FILM MEMOIR (review)

Review by Seth Levi Roman Polanski is going to be remembered for three things: Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, and rape. Despite being called “a film...

Seth LeviOctober 30, 2013

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How to Incubate New TV shows

It’s October — that time of year that new shows debut, and three episodes later they’re canceled. This has been going on since the...

Seth LeviOctober 23, 2013

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On Series Finales: STAR TREK: TNG To BREAKING BAD

I’ve now had a week to digest the Breaking Bad finale — which I was initially cool to and have grown cooler — but...

Seth LeviOctober 9, 2013

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Hi-Res Audio Again Being Pushed; Doomed To Fail Again?

Every few years video quality seems to take a huge leap forward. Most of us have only had HDTVs for 4 or 5 years,...

Seth LeviSeptember 25, 2013

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My Two Year Anniversary Without Cable Television

After having gone two years without cable TV, it seems unlikely that I’ll ever pay for it again. Between the channels I get over...

Seth LeviSeptember 11, 2013

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Autonomy of a Failed Show: The Agreeableness of ‘THE NEWSROOM’

Let me start this post with a preface: I’m not trying to jump on The Newsroom bashing bandwagon. I watch the show because I...

Seth LeviAugust 28, 2013

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The Legacy of ‘BREAKING BAD’: Costume Design

Seemingly every aspect of Breaking Bad has been praised: the acting, the writing, the direction, the character development, etc. But all great TV shows...

Seth LeviAugust 14, 2013

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Why Netflix Isn’t Excited About Its Emmy Nominations

The pop culture TV news story of 2013 is shaping up to be Netflix’s original content, that in less than a year’s time have...

Seth LeviJuly 31, 2013

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How Over-The-Air TV Could Save The Networks

Last week an attempted sale of Hulu was aborted. The broadcast networks don’t make money from it, but they are not quite ready to...

Seth LeviJuly 17, 2013