• Fri, Dec 13, 24
  • 2:44:14 am
Search
Close this search box.

queen

09 Mar

What Would a Queen’s Gambit Musical Look Like?

Netflix, New DVD release, , ,
Some ideas are too good to be constrained to merely one medium. Such is the case with Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit. After starting its life on the page, the story of chess prodigy Beth Harmon moved to television with a seven-episode Netflix adaptation starring the ethereal Anya Taylor-Joy. Now that Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit is racking up awards (with a presumable Emmy sweep still to come) it’s time for the story to enter into yet another medium. Deadline reported today that entertainment company Level Forward has acquired the theatrical stage rights to the novel. That’s right: The…
Read More
22 Feb

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 12 Review: Diary Queen

New DVD release, , , , ,
This The Simpsons review contains spoilers. The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 12 The Simpsons Season 32, episode 12, “Diary Queen,” may be the sweetest offering of the series. It’s not only sentimental and self-esteem-positive, it’s downright edumacational. At least for Bart, who certainly learns a lesson. Thankfully, as the episode explains by example, he probably won’t retain it. “What’s the matter, Bart? I figure you’d be used to failing by now,” Edna Krabappel once consoled the spiky haired kid who seemed so determined to get through school without schooling. Marcia Wallace, who played the Springfield Elementary teacher, died unexpectedly in…
Read More
23 Nov

The Queen’s Gambit is Reportedly Netflix’s Most-Watched Limited Series Ever

New DVD release, , , , , ,
If your teens have been using troubling slang of late like “Pawn to E5,” “Castling,” and “Ponziani Opening,” we now have some evidence as to why. Netflix announced today that The Queen’s Gambit, its chess drama starring Anya Taylor-Joy, has become the most-watched Netflix original miniseries ever, with over 62 million households having taken in all the chess action. Per Netflix, those 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 days of release. The show made Netflix’s curated “Top Ten” list in 92 different countries and topped out at number 1 in 63 countries, including the U.S.…
Read More
16 Nov

The Queen’s Gambit: Why ’60s Retro Feels So Fresh in 2020

Netflix, New DVD release, , , ,
This article contains mild The Queen’s Gambit spoilers. It’s not the image that first springs to mind when you think of chess. In a swanky Parisian parlor, with a bank of breathless photographers following her every gesture, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Beth Harmon rushes in while still in a daze. She’s clearly missing a step after a late night of bad decisions, yet even at her most disheveled she emanates ‘60s style. Like Ann-Margret in The Cincinnati Kid, Beth’s fiery mane of red hair is turned up at the sides in a flip. The idol of her age. But with that 1965…
Read More
14 Nov

The Queen’s Gambit: The Real History Behind Beth’s Green Pills

New DVD release, , , , ,
This article contains spoilers for The Queen’s Gambit. Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit dramatizes the unprecedented rise of (fictional) chess prodigy Elizabeth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) through the grandmaster ranks of chess champions in the 1950s and ‘60s. But as with other prestige television series, there is a dark side to this savant’s talents: While she possesses a natural affinity for complex and creative chess moves, Beth is also constrained by her growing drug addiction, which she believes allows her to prevail in so many harrowing chess matches.  Even before she touches a pawn for the first time, these little green tranquilizer…
Read More
13 Nov

How The Queen’s Gambit Created an Authentic Portrayal of Chess Mastery

New DVD release, , , , , ,
Netflix’s stylish drama The Queen’s Gambit might just be the surprise hit of the fall. As adapted by a 1983 Walter Tevis novel of the same name, the show’s storytelling is on point, its production design spectacular, and star Anya Taylor Joy’s outfits…truly staggering. But the real key to The Queen’s Gambit appeal is its focus on one of the world’s oldest and most popular games: chess. Thanks to the show (and also probably the global pandemic), chess is having a bit of a moment right now. According to eBay, the retail site saw a remarkable 273% surge in sales…
Read More
19 Oct

Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

New DVD release, , , ,
Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike. The key, Taylor-Joy…
Read More
02 Oct

The Queen’s Gambit Review: A (Grand)masterful Portrait of Genius and Addiction

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Queen’s Gambit review contains no spoilers. Did you know that a chess game can run so long that it gets adjourned? The player whose turn it is records their next move in a sealed envelope so that when both opponents next sit down, refreshed, they can proceed as if play has been unbroken. That is just one of the intricacies of chess revealed to the layman viewer in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon. Adapted from Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel, the miniseries—whose seven episodes are named for phases or moves of…
Read More
24 Sep

The Queen’s Gambit Full Trailer Arrives for Anya Taylor-Joy’s Netflix Series

New DVD release, , , , , ,
The Queen’s Gambit, a television miniseries based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel of the same name, progresses toward an October arrival on Netflix, auspiciously touting a headliner in rising star Anya Taylor-Joy. Creators Scott Frank (Godless) and Allan Scott (The Witches) wrote the serial television adaptation, which Frank directed for its 7-episode frame. The story of The Queen’s Gambit centers on orphaned young American woman Beth Harmon (Taylor-Joy), who endured a rough and cynical upbringing by embracing the game of chess, becoming a prodigious player who starts to dominate the competition circuit, and eventually reaches international levels. However, her story…
Read More
11 Sep

The Babysitter: Killer Queen Review

Netflix, New DVD release, , ,
Just when you thought it was safe to check out Netflix tonight, the streamer has dumped a sequel to its 2017 hit The Babysitter into its endless river of algorithm-calibrated goo. But while some critics apparently found the first movie charming–and appreciated the presence of rising horror-comedy star Samara Weaving (Ready or Not)–The Babysitter: Killer Queen fails on every level to make even a perfunctory case for a follow-up. For one thing, Weaving is not the lead baddie this time around, even if most of the rest of the cast from the original encore here. Now you may ask how…
Read More
27 Aug

The Queen’s Gambit Trailer and Release Date Drop from Netflix

New DVD release, , , ,
What happens when a queen becomes a pawn to addiction? Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a brilliant, tortured woman intent on smashing competitive chess’ glass ceiling. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, the seven-episode limited series drama was co-created by two-time Academy Award nominee Scott Frank (Godless) and Allan Scott (Don’t Look Now), who are executive producers along with William Horberg (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain). The Queen’s Gambit is a “coming-of-age story that explores the true cost of genius,” according to the official synopsis. “Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late…
Read More
04 Jul

Cassidy Diamond is Search Party Season 3’s Vocal Fry Queen

New DVD release, , , , , ,
The following contains spoilers for Search Party season 3.  Search Party season 3 finds its core characters in a place they probably expected to be ever since the violent events of the show’s first season finale: on trial for their lives. Yes, after a tragic case of mistaken intentions winds up with Keith (Ron Livingston) dead, Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat) and Drew Gardner (John Reynolds) finally end up in court on murder charges. Dory, Drew, and their friends Elliott Goss (John Early) and Portia Davenport (Meredeith Hagner) need a legal savior. They need…Cassidy Diamond. As portrayed by Shalita Grant (Santa…
Read More
02 Jul

The 100 Season 7 Episode 7 Review: The Queen’s Gambit

New DVD release, , , ,
This THE 100 review contains spoilers The 100 Season 7 Episode 7 Lindsey Morgan (who plays Raven Rayes) directed a crackling episode of The 100 that treats us to a heaping pile of wonderful character moments and more mysteries than you can shake a stick at. Sheidheda continues to prove why he had a reputation as a master strategist and Emori comes into her own as a leader on Sanctum while Murphy struggles with the opposite impulse. Meanwhile, some of the most formidable women on the show found themselves imprisoned on Bardo, and Jackson helped Madi lay down her burden as Commander…
Read More
29 Feb

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

Max SchindlerMovie reviews, , ,
Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street sets the records straight about the controversial sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which ended Mark Patton’s acting career, just as it was about to begin. Scream Queen follows Patton as he travels to horror conventions across the U.S. Each new city unwraps a chapter from his life that is met with equal parts joyful and bittersweet detail, as he attempts to make peace with his past and embrace his legacy as cinema’s first male “scream queen.” Scream Queen also finds Patton confronting Freddy’s Revenge cast and crew for the first time,…
Read More
23 Nov

Queen & Slim

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country. As…
Read More
14 Nov

The Warrior Queen of Jhansi

Max SchindlerMovie reviews, ,
The Warrior Queen of Jhansi tells the true story of the legendary Rani (translation: Queen) of Jhansi, a feminist icon in India and a fearless freedom fighter. In 1857 India, this 24-year old General led her people into battle against the British Empire earning the reputation as the Joan of Arc of the East. This real-life Wonder Woman's insurrection shifted the balance of power in the region and set in motion the demise of the notorious British East India Company and the beginning of the British Raj under Queen Victoria.Rated: Not RatedRelease Date: Nov 15, 2019
Read More
31 Oct

Queen of Hearts

Max SchindlerMovie reviews,
Anne, a brilliant and dedicated advocacy lawyer specializing in society’s most vulnerable, children and young adults, lives what appears to be the picture-perfect life with her doctor-husband, Peter, and their twin daughters. When her estranged teenage stepson, Gustav, moves in with them, Anne’s escalating desire leads her down a dangerous rabbit hole which, once exposed, unleashes a sequence of events destined to destroy her world.Rated: Not RatedRelease Date: Nov 01, 2019
Read More

DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

Movie Shop

Categories

Other Blogs