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Josh Bell

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  • television

    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    Judge’s latest animated series, The Goode Family (ABC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.), co-created with Hill writers John Altschuler and David Krinsky, is a heavy-handed satire of political correctness that makes Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head look like a paragon of subtlety.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    The Sci Fi Center in downtown’s Commercial Center has been running its cult-movie nights for a while now, and this week comes up with a pretty ingenious double feature.

  • Friday, May 15, 2009

  • Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Film critic and historian Tony Macklin joins Josh to chat about Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons and James Toback’s documentary Tyson. Plus, Valkyrie on DVD.

  • television

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Glee, the extremely weird new show from Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, opens like it’s going to be High School Musical 4: a squad of high-school cheerleaders, kinetic moves, a big modern-yet-traditional dance beat, some catchy melodies.

  • Noise

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Breakdown, another politically conscious rock opera, in some ways even more grandiose than Idiot, is a big album in every way. People looking for American Idiot, only more, will probably be pleased.

  • Film

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    What was Mike Tyson's reaction to seeing himself portrayed in the biopic Tyson? "He said, 'It’s like a Greek tragedy; he only problem is I’m the subject.'"

  • Film

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Toback’s latest film, titled Tyson , is an intimate documentary about the director’s old friend, and Toback affords Tyson the same sort of indulgence he’s given to the brutish, misogynistic characters in his fiction films, coming up with a result that is at least as fascinating.

  • Friday, May 8, 2009

    Las Vegas Weekly Associate Editor T.R. Witcher joins Josh to praise the great new Star Trek movie, plus geek out on favorite Star Trek movies and TV series of the past. Also, non-Star Trek movies Paris 36 and Next Day Air open in theaters, apparently.

  • Film

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    Josh Bell doesn't hate it!?! Star Trek franchise is top-notch summer-blockbuster entertainment that revitalizes an ailing property.

  • Music

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    The name on the cover says Heaven & Hell, but don’t pay any attention to that—this is a Black Sabbath album.

  • CineVegas 2009

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    Trevor Groth, artistic director of the CineVegas film festival, was named this week as director of programming for Sundance, America’s highest-profile film festival.

  • Film

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    Next Day Air is a mildly amusing buddy comedy, but the fun little stoner comedy cries for help.

  • Film

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    The French musical looks back through such rose-colored glasses, it makes you long to live under the shadow of uncertainty as fascists rise to power.

  • Friday, May 1, 2009

    Roger Erik Tinch, art and online director for CineVegas, joins Josh to chat about the beginning of the summer blockbuster season with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, plus indie baseball drama Sugar, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on DVD.

  • Comics

    Thursday, April 30, 2009

    Comic books will once again be at the forefront of pop culture this week, and the comics industry is taking advantage with its annual Free Comic Book Day event.

  • Friday, April 24, 2009

    Michael T. Toole, contributing writer for Turner Classic Movies website, joins Josh to chat about earnest but ineffective new releases The Soloist and Sin Nombre, plus Fighting and Earth also in theaters, and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s comeback vehicle JCVD on DVD.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    A sweeping, generic wildlife film, Earth features a few passing mentions of global warming but otherwise focuses on the same things as every other nature documentary since the form was invented: predators and prey, migration, harsh climates and cuteness.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    Maybe it’s a bad idea to expect much from a movie with a title as generic as Fighting .

  • Music

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    At first glance, the lineup of supergroup Tinted Windows seems pretty incongruous: singer Taylor Hanson (Hanson), bassist Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), guitarist James Iha (ex-Smashing Pumpkins) and drummer Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick).

  • television

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    Thanks to DirecTV, unjustly canceled shows get a second chance.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    Sayra (Gaitan) follows her uncle and estranged father from Honduras, heading to New Jersey to live with a family of half-siblings she’s never met. Mexican gang member Willy (Flores) joins the throngs bound for the border almost by accident, after killing the leader of his crew before the man can rape Sayra.

  • Friday, April 17, 2009

    Angela Abshier, producer of the Las Vegas 48 Hour Film Project, joins Josh to chat about this weekend’s edition of the event, plus new theatrical releases Gomorrah and State of Play, and The Wrestler and Frost/Nixon on DVD.

  • Reviews

    Thursday, April 16, 2009

    Old-fashioned investigative journalism, printed on newsprint, is the only institution capable of bringing down ridiculously convoluted movie conspiracies.

  • television

    Thursday, April 16, 2009

    Sit Down, Shut Up (Fox, Sundays, 8:30 p.m.) is a clumsy, rudimentary animated show that looks like the kind of thing Comedy Central would slap together to air after South Park and run for two mostly unnoticed seasons.

  • Friday, April 10, 2009

  • Music

    Thursday, April 9, 2009

    Former Nickel Creek member Sara Watkins makes her solo debut with a quiet, subdued album that encompasses folk, country and the progressive bluegrass for which her old trio was known.

  • Literature

    Thursday, April 9, 2009

    Another decent magazine bites the dust.

  • television

    Thursday, April 9, 2009

    American TV shows never end. Or rather, they end all the time through cancellation, but they’re never meant to end.

  • Friday, April 3, 2009

    Las Vegas Weekly Managing Editor Ken Miller joins Josh to discuss car-racing extravaganza Fast & Furious, plus The Great Buck Howard, Adventureland, Sunshine Cleaning and a handful of mediocre new releases on DVD.

  • television

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    The TV cop drama is a genre nearly as old as the medium itself, and while networks are always looking for ways to tweak the formula, the biggest successes always come back to basics.

  • A&E

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    High-tech hand-dryers, tiny cheeseburgers, shaking seats and spying cameras—all possibly coming to a theater near you courtesy of ShoWest.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    Fast & Furious, the fourth film in the ludicrous car-racing franchise, opens with an undeniably exciting sequence that reintroduces Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) from the 2001 original.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    People complain that Hollywood movies don’t give audiences enough credit, that nuance is lost in giant spectacles full of special effects and stuff blowing up, but so-called indie movies like Sunshine Cleaning, for example, can be just as pedantic.

  • Film

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    The Great Buck Howard is a movie that seems constantly on the verge of turning into something. Its title character is a stage magician, but you sit through the whole thing waiting for magic that never comes.

  • Music

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    Let’s be honest: at this point, Keith Urban is pretty much indistinguishable from Bon Jovi.

  • Friday, March 27, 2009

    It's official: After back to back nights of nostalgia rock, Vegas is the hair-metal capital of America.

  • Thursday, March 26, 2009

    Anthony Del Valle, theater critic for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and former film critic for Las Vegas CityLife and the Las Vegas Mercury, joins Josh to chat about the unexpected depths of new releases Monsters vs. Aliens and The Haunting in Connecticut, along with an early look at Sunshine Cleaning, out next week. Plus, recommendations to check out Slumdog Millionaire and Tell No One on DVD.

  • Film

    Thursday, March 26, 2009

    Monsters vs. Aliens doesn't have the world’s most compelling or complex story: It’s pretty much all there in the title. A nefarious alien invader decides to take over the Earth, and it’s up to a band of monsters to stop him.

  • television

    Thursday, March 26, 2009

    Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas returns to TV with two new shows in two weeks, both of which should at least partially please the rabid (if small) fanbase for his cult teen-detective show.

  • Music

    Thursday, March 26, 2009

    It’s almost hard to believe that the Martina McBride who made Shine is the same Martina McBride who made the stellar 2005 covers album Timeless, a work steeped in traditional country.

  • Friday, March 20, 2009

    Las Vegas Weekly Associate Editor T.R. Witcher joins Josh to talk about great chemistry and dull plotting in Duplicity, the atypical teacher-student dynamic in The Class and “bromantic” comedy I Love You, Man. Plus, latest James Bond movie Quantum of Solace comes to DVD.

  • Film

    Thursday, March 19, 2009

    Director John Hamburg really lucked out by landing Paul Rudd and Jason Segel for the leads in his new comedy I Love You, Man.

  • Film

    Thursday, March 19, 2009

    Duplicity is about the zippy chemistry between former secret agents, but it’s not until 45 minutes in that we find out what the plot really is.

  • Music

    Thursday, March 19, 2009

    If you’re a pop star, it’s fine to take big stylistic risks and make deeply personal statements in your music, as long as the gamble pays off. For Kelly Clarkson's 2007 album My December, it didn't.

  • television

    Thursday, March 19, 2009

    When Sci Fi’s Battlestar Galactica premiered as a miniseries in 2003, it didn’t arrive with many high expectations.

  • Saturday, March 14, 2009

    The sparse crowd at Las Vegas Country Saloon was at least as invested in the antics of various drunken revelers riding the club's mechanical bull as it was in local alt-country act The Clydesdale's Neon Reverb set.

  • Friday, March 13, 2009

    Watch a video review of "The Last House on the Left" by Las Vegas Weekly's Josh Bell.

  • Friday, March 13, 2009

    Jeffrey K. Howard of Vegas Film Critic and KVBC Channel 3 joins Josh to analyze the violence in the new remake of The Last House on the Left. Plus, the vulgar comedy Miss March, Role Models on DVD and a new Blu-Ray edition of Pinocchio.

  • Film

    Thursday, March 12, 2009

    The Casino Job manages to make even watching naked strippers in a hot tub a laborious experience.