Preacher was a comic of its time, and that time was the 1990s. To put it another way, Preacher was a comic of the time when many of its biggest fans — fans who are now television-watching adults, and, for that matter, television-criticism-writing adults — were in their 20s. Which is all …
It says something — something I am dead certain is not good — about our culture that the preeminent political statement of the moment is where you stand on the Ghostbusters remake. As I write this, Paul Feig’s all-female reboot of the beloved franchise has only just had its wide opening, and …
My friend Tom Block is in serious trouble and needs our help. Let me tell you about Tom. He’s smart , funny , a great storyteller , a terrific writer , and a critic of unusual insight . He’s lived a life many of us would love to lead. Most recently he took …
It takes a lot of nerve for anyone, let alone a Czech, to title a story “Mr. Kafka”. Finicky Franz casts such a huge shadow on the literature of Prague that it’s audacious to the point of foolhardiness to invite the comparison. But if anyone earned the right to do …
OLD TIME RADIO FAVORITES Where Creeps the Shuffler! From the Casebook of Kidneypunch O’Sullivan Oh, Those Bulczywyczs! The Aaron’s Basinet Polish and Badney’s Consumption Grease Old-Time Variety Hunker-Down Hour Around-the-Barn News Farmer Seth’s Country Comedy Chiaroscuro Li’l’ Jinx and the Hard Luck Soup Kitchen Kids Trag McCrunley, Wharf Detective Weepie & …
It is not often that the events of a single day so crashingly drives home the lessons of a social moment. America had barely raised its head from the pillow after learning of the death in Louisiana of Alton Sterling, a black man hustling bootlegs outside of a convenience store, …
Yorgos Lanthimos does something that is almost unprecedented in film today: he makes movies that are entirely original. Say what you will about his work — that it is ridiculous, that it is pretentious, that it is incomprehensible, that it is impenetrable, that it is cynical, that it lacks humanity …
Today is the Fourth of July, America’s national holiday. Longtime readers of this site will know that every day on this year, I post a little sermon about the state of the country, always trying to follow the advice of the late, great Paul Fussell, who wrote, in BAD, or, the …
When I finally got around to reading Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, I experienced the kind of revolutionary bolt from the blue that changes minds and changes worlds. I’d read Rorty before (a few short essays here and there, and his Objectivity, Truth and Relativism), and liked what I’d seen, …
A TAXONOMY OF REALITY PROGRAMMING COMPETITIVE SHOWS: * People compete to win money > People compete to win the right to continue being on television * People compete in a performing talent show > People compete in a performing talent show with or against celebrities * People compete in a …
I don’t usually like going to public appearances by artists. I don’t normally like readings; I don’t normally like director screenings; and I don’t normally like writer Q&As. You’d think that I would; I used to be in the celebrity interview game, after all, and there’s nothing like talking directly …
Peter Greenaway has had such a willy-nilly career over the last few decades that it’s easy to forget how amazingly potent and productive he was at the height of his powers. After years of making hypnotic short films throughout the ’70s, he began with The Falls in 1980 and, until he …
“So, what do you guys sell?” “Traditional science fiction and high fantasy.” “Your average author isn’t 83 years old and nearly dead, then?” “Traditional science fiction and high fantasy.” “Oh. Okay. But, I mean, you don’t just do space operas based on the technical education of someone who was an …
Paul Krugman, who is wrong about things slightly less often than he is right about things, was very wrong about something today. “Unless you were a victim or were close to a victim,” he tweeted, “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.” With all due respect to the victims of the horrendous mass …
As I have discussed elsewhere on this site, I do not actually believe that Donald Trump, the scrapings from the bottom of a dumpster behind an overpriced steakhouse, actually represents some dire worst-case scenario for America. I don’t even think he varies much from the average Republican, and the party’s …
