Josh Bell

Whatever else I got done this weekend, I watched both 'Nightmare Beach' and 'Slaughter High,' so I think it has to be considered a success.

Animated sitcom King of the Hill returns with its simple charm intact One advantage of animated series is that characters never need to age or evolve, since they can always be drawn to look exactly the same....

The revival of animated series 'King of the Hill' (premiering tomorrow on Hulu) finds an impressive balance between preserving the original and updating it for 2025. My @inlander.com review:

Josh Bell Hates: The Naked Gun - Highway Radio Following in the footsteps of his bumbling father, Detective Frank Drebin Jr. must solve a murder case to prevent the police department from shutting down. Our favorite Las Vegas movie and media criti...

Some quick thoughts on the highly entertaining 'The Naked Gun' in this week's Highway Radio segment.

Seems telling that there were zero previews for upcoming comedies at my showing of 'The Naked Gun' tonight.

Of course Kevin Smith turned 'Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob' into a 'Clerks III' sequel about Randal processing the death of his best friend Dante. (And of course I read it.)

Friday, August 1st Ocean’s Movie Marathon on TNT “Ocean’s Thirteen” – 11:45am ET/PT “Ocean's Twelve” – 2:15pm ET/PT “Ocean’s Eleven” – 5:00pm ET/PT

Proof that literally no one is paying attention to linear cable programming: Tomorrow TNT is showing the 'Ocean's' movies in *reverse order*.

A Most Violent Year (2014 Josh's Pick) - Awesome Movie Year The sixth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 2014 features Josh’s personal pick, J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year. Written and directed by J.C. Chandor and starring Oscar Isaac, Jess...

J.C. Chandor's subsequent career has been underwhelming, but his film 'A Most Violent Year' is still one of best crime dramas of the past decade or so. I picked it for this week's 2014 episode of Awesome Movie Year. #filmsky #moviesky

It's bad enough that Vegas got saddled with this guy a few years ago, but now he's making some Christian golf movie here with Kevin Sorbo? This is the city of Ted V. Mikels and Albert Pyun; we can do better.

As someone who started my journalism career working in the alt-weekly listings mine, I find a lot of resonance here. Las Vegas Weekly still has some meager listings, and newsletters like Andrew Kiraly's The List and CityCast's Hey Las Vegas fill in some gaps, but it's not the same.

All 5 Fantastic Four movies, ranked — including the one Marvel doesn't want you to see How does 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' stack up to the Marvel superhero team's previous cinematic incarnations?

Also for @tomsguide.com, I ranked all the Fantastic Four movies (and the Roger Corman version is not the worst!).

I bet those cases were much less entertaining than vintage screwball comedies.

No matter how many old movies I watch in which they serve as key plot points, it still amazes me that breach-of-promise suits were a real thing.

One of the end-credits jokes in the original 'Naked Gun' is to credit bit players with the only lines they spoke (rather than, like, "Man #2"), and that's genuinely more useful than the way it's actually done.

Celebrate Christmas in July With Christmas in Connecticut — Crooked Marquee It may have been released during the summer 80 years ago, but this Barbara Stanwyck romantic comedy captures its own screwball sense of the Christmas spirit.

For @crooked-marquee.bsky.social I celebrated the 80th anniversary of the sharp, forward-thinking Barbara Stanwyck romantic comedy 'Christmas in Connecticut,' which, yes, was originally released in July. #filmsky #moviesky

BDSM-flavored rom-com Oh, Hi! isn't as daring as it's made out to be Writer/director Sophie Brooks' Oh, Hi! opens like a horror movie, with ominous background music as a car pulls up to a secluded house late at...

Dark comedy 'Oh, Hi!' (in theaters tomorrow) sounds like something I would love, but writer-director Sophie Brooks keeps botching the follow-through on her bold ideas. My @inlander.com review:

#filmsky #moviesky

‘’The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ review: A breath of fresh air for superhero fans Marvel's first family of superheroes finally gets the big-screen treatment it deserves in this retro crowd-pleaser

'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' (in theaters tonight) continues this summer's trend of superhero movies that embrace their bright, wide-eyed comic book origins. My @tomsguide.com review:

#filmsky #moviesky

I'd like to think that 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' takes place in the same retro-pastiche universe as 'Down With Love.' I bet Johnny Storm would be an avid reader of 'Know' magazine and an admirer of Catcher Block.

True, there's more charm to the awkwardness of the acting and the practical effects.

Life Itself (2014 Documentary) - Awesome Movie Year The fifth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 2014 features our documentary pick, Steve James’ Life Itself. Directed by Steve James and featuring Roger Ebert, Life Itself is based on Eb...

We're always quoting Roger Ebert reviews on Awesome Movie Year, so obviously we picked the Ebert profile 'Life Itself' for our 2014 documentary episode, out today. #filmsky #moviesky

The Writer's Block An independent bookstore in downtown Las Vegas, offering free creative-writing classes to grades K–12.

If Vegas isn't too far, check out the Writer's Block (bookstore) and the Beverly Theater (cinema), which are adjacent to each other and host events together.

The third season of the 'Charmed' reboot constantly found supernatural reasons to keep the characters apart, and their entire city seemed to be populated by 3-5 people at a time. It made things effectively eerie, in a way.

I've been watching lots of lower-tier 1980s slasher movies as comfort viewing and discovered an important truth about myself.

VODepths: What to See (and Avoid) on Demand This Week — Crooked Marquee Our mini-reviews of “No Sleep Till,” “Bury Me When I’m Dead,” “Ghost Killer,” and more of this week’s on-demand treasures and trash.

A goofy Japanese action comedy is the highlight of this week's VODepths, which also features one of the dumbest fake-movie-drug names in a while. #filmsky #moviesky

Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets

I wish I had gotten to see Ozzy Osbourne in concert in his heyday, but I'm still grateful that I had so many opportunities to experience his madness. RIP.

I've been watching all the old Fantastic Four movies in advance of the new one, and they're definitely not good, but they are all around 100 minutes, which counts for something.

A memoir of an African upbringing in turbulent times comes to life in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight "Are we racists?" 8-year-old Alexandra "Bobo" Fuller (Lexi Venter) asks her parents in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, and the defensive response offers...

Embeth Davidtz deftly navigates problematic subject matter and showcases one of this year's best child performances in her directorial debut 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight,' expanding today into more theaters (including AMC Town Square in Vegas). My @inlander.com review:

#filmsky #moviesky

Kind of disappointed that the ominously flickering light on my nightly walking route has been fixed. It was like a brief horror-movie detour each time.

The new 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' is just like the original — a mediocre slasher-movie runner-up The legacy sequel to the '90s horror favorite is once again playing catch-up to bigger franchises

The original 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' is not very good, and neither is the new legacy sequel (in theaters tonight). My @tomsguide.com review:

#filmsky #moviesky

Winter Sleep (2014 Cannes Award Winner) - Awesome Movie Year The fourth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 2014 features the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep. Directed and co-written by Nuri Bilge Ceylan a...

I admit that I struggled with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 'Winter Sleep,' but at least I was in good company on that in this week's 2014 episode of Awesome Movie Year. #filmsky #moviesky

Waking up in a panic about needing to add something to a review I didn't write and wasn't assigned to write is a new level of work anxiety I apparently unlocked.