american history | the m0vie blog

192. Hamilton: An American Musical – This Just In (#20)

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Deirdre Mulomby, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Thomas Kail’s Hamilton: An American Musical.

Reconstructed from a pair of live theatrical recordings and additional material compiled in June 2016, Hamilton features one of the last performances from the original Broadway cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s record-breaking smash hit cultural sensation, available on streaming for the first time.

At time of recording, it was ranked 20th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: accessibility, alexander hamilton, american history, black lives matter, Broadway, cinema, confederate monuments, deirdre molumby, film, hamilton, Hip hop, lin-manuel miranda, money, royalty, streaming, Theatre | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Aubrey (Review)

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

Aubrey doesn’t necessarily a make a lot of sense. Even as episodes of The X-Files go, “serial killer genes that skip a generation” feels like a logical leap. The idea that not only memories but personalities can be passed from grandfather to granddaughter is absurd even by the standards of a show that just did “magic mushrooms that cure Alzheimer’s and give people telekinesis and open portals to another world.” Perhaps it’s the fact that Aubrey tries to root its story in genetics that makes it seem so ridiculous.

And yet, once you get past that logical leap, Aubrey is a fascinating little episode. Aubrey works on quite a few levels that are disconnected from the story itself. For one thing, it is a Rob Bowman episode, and he is clearly pushing himself. For another, the guest cast features superb performances from Deborah Strang, Terry O’Quinn and Morgan Woodward. There’s also the fact that Aubrey connects almost perfectly with both the underlying themes of The X-Files as a show and of the second season in particular.