Too long; do not read.
Today is the Fourth of July, the day the United States celebrates its independence and the day we all celebrate a nation founded as an ideal, a project, an attempt at changing the rules by which nations were governed. On the Fourth of July, I have always followed the advice …
To commemorate his unceremonious dumping by a wide range of belatedly embarrassed corporate entities, I have been thinking a lot about the man who will not be our next president, Donald “Mayonnaise” Trump. Young people today may only know him as the talentless, egomaniacal clown behind The Apprentice who has …
Yesterday, we discussed the way streaming media — which has long held out the digital era’s promise of easy access to all filmed entertainment, anytime, anywhere — has in fact led to a balkanization of programming and resulted in a situation where many movies and TV shows are less available …
It was recently announced by the minds that run 21st Century FOX that, going forward from season 15, The Simpsons would no longer be released in digital video disc format. Taken as a specific instance, this is no great loss; the critical consensus is that The Simpsons lost its bite a …
It doesn’t take a genius to know that this country is in trouble. Which is fortunate, because I am not a genius. Mass murders, police brutality, economic turmoil, terrorism at home and abroad, a constantly shifting social landscape, even the degradation of the very air, land, and water we need …
Last week, Matt Singer wrote a wonderful article at ScreenCrush with the title “Stop Telling Me To Turn My Brain Off During Movies”. It was a refreshingly welcome, and long-overdue, answer to the too-frequent claim that, by paying any attention whatsover to a movie’s idiotic qualities, we are somehow betraying …
There is a clip from yesterday’s Daily Show circulating around in which Jon Stewart, devoid of his usual joking manner, laments the Charleston church massacre while dreading that once again, faced with a mass murder, America isn’t going to do anything. And that’s probably right. But the problem isn’t so much …
In yesterday’s review of Wayward Pines, it was noted that the 2015 Grand Champeen of ridiculous TV camp roles is Oscar nominee Terrence Howard. About Howard we know many things: we know, for example, that he loves his own reflection, and does not love women and their dirty, filthy vaginas. We also …
It would be hard to find a director who squandered his early reputation for excellence more quickly and more thoroughly than M. Night Shyamalan. Sunk partly by his own ambition and partly by his adherence to a structure that allowed critics to easily stereotype him as ‘the twist endings guy’, …
FIRST AMENDMENT (12/15/1791): This one is generally very popular especially with loudmouths. The only part that causes trouble is the part where we can’t impede the free exercise of religion, because somehow those lunatic Muslims got their shit rubber-stamped as a religion instead of what it is: a crazy murder …
I have been asked by a number of readers to explain the eighth and final issue of Convergence, the latest mega-event series by DC Comics. Convergence is a huge, epic, multiverse-spanning saga that is intended to end the DC universe as we know it (again), usher in the birth of an …
Movies of ideas are so rare these days that you have to go out of your way to find them, and that can mean overcoming your own prejudices. Mainstream films with ideas are rarer still, so I had to put my bias against CGI-loaded sci-fi blockbusters when I read about …
When you have dedicated your life to becoming a professional, it isn’t that hard to pick up an old skill, no matter how long it’s been since you exercised it. Much has been made of George Miller’s advancing age (he’s almost twice as old as a typical action film director, …
Have you ever noticed that comic stores are awful? No? Well, then you’ve never been in one, you lying shit. Recently my experiences in these places that happiness goes to die, stink, and be wrapped in a mylar bag have been particularly dreadful, but I soldier on for you, the …
It took Nixon to go to China, and it took a German to make the ultimate American road picture. Wim Wenders’ career has had plenty of highs and lows, but his obsession with, and near mastery of, the road movie is impossible to dispute. Many of his greatest movies, including …
