Thanksgiving posts may not be obligatory – believe me, I’d much rather be getting drunk and cooking, and I don’t think anyone in the world would care if I did – but giving thanks, especially if you’ve been as lucky as I am, is mandatory. So, as 2015 starts to …
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Jessica Jones, the new Netflix series based on the troubled but fascinating Marvel Comics heroine, isn’t noir. That word has gotten tossed around endlessly by just about every critic that’s written about it, but it’s so far from accurate that it’s not …
It’s time we all sat down and had a little talk about rooting interests. Now, I warn you in advance: this is all completely subjective. What I am going to say here — what I am going to lay down as universal law that should be followed, with the punishment …
Hi there! I’m Jesse Popinski, better known as Uncle Hi-Finance. You may know me from HGTV’s Money Hole, the Anything You Can Do I Can Do Richer pamphlet series, and my best-selling satellite radio show, Uncle Hi-Finance’s Tax Shelter Hour. Thanks for tuning in to my podcast, which will appear on your credit …
Just when we thought we’d seen the one billionth iteration of the auteur argument in cinema, now we have to deal with it on television. Look, I get it! Television is hard. It takes a lot of people to put out that 22-44 minutes of televised entertainment. Even in the …
Well, that was unexpected, wasn’t it? Another major terrorist attack on a Western city was probably inevitable, but it was still shocking. The coordinated attacks on various locations in Paris on a busy weekend, by all indications planned and carried out by members of ISIS, left over a hundred innocent …
Let’s talk about Hitler for a little bit. No, no, not about going back in time and killing the baby version of him. We can all agree that this is nice clean fun, and in terms of using it to retroactively secure our national security, Jeb Bush (pardon me, Jeb! Bush) …
During the Paris Commune of 1871 — one of the first and still one of the greatest attempts by ordinary people to throw off the rule of priests, bosses, and money-men and take control of their own lives — a group of Communards, mostly workers and craftsmen, set off towards …
As anyone who has spent any time on Facebook — a cohort that, at last count, includes 92% of the human population of Earth, including pre-technological hunter-gatherer tribes in central Africa and your mom — knows, Words With Friends is one of the most popular games in the history of …
While the visitor from abroad or the hinterlands will find New York a largely agreeable clime, from the silvered canyons of finance on Wall Street to the richly variegated taxi dispatch yards of Castle Hill Avenue, it cannot be denied that there are, in these uncertain economic times, organized groups …
It is often said of films — documentaries in particular — that they are either timeless and universal, or that they capture a very specific time and place. Chris Marker’s first feature film, Le Joli Mai (co-directed with cameraman Pierre Lhomme), manages the neat trick of being both of those things. …
The film that Robert Bresson made in 1983, L’Argent, would be the last he would ever make. It is, if nothing else, a movie made by a director in full command of his intentions, a work of art created by someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do and would …
