It may not be entirely fair to call French director Olivier Assayas, who has delivered some of the most thrilling as well as some of the most bewildering film of the past few decades, wildly inconsistent. There is always, at least, a baseline of artfulness in his work that suggests …
Ever since the 2016 election, when the Democratic establishment faced a surprisingly strong challenge from Bernie Sanders and his relatively mild form of economic leftism, liberal partisans have insisted that everyone in America is underselling the damage done by racism. (Everyone, that is, except themselves. No one rolls their eyes …
One of the most common — and accurate — criticisms of the Netflix series based on Marvel comics characters is that they’re so dreadfully long. At a baker’s dozen episodes, each clocking in at an overstuffed hour, even the best of them can become a terrible slog. (Netflix seems to have …
It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump led America into another pointless, brutal conflict overseas. The only surprise is the speed with which he did it; most presidents would wait until they were in much more dire domestic straits before giving into the instinct to prop up …
The results, so far, of the latest ‘season’ of my long-running fantasy wrestling league. Enjoy, nobody! INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 2017 EVENT SCHEDULE Season 57: Colluctatio Ergo Sum Friday Night Fights I: Sic Infit [So It Begins] Friday, Jan. 6th, 5:00am CST; Ariake Coliseum, Tokyo, Japan (All-Japan) All-Japan Light Heavyweight Qualifier: …
The podcast has risen from its humble beginnings, with primitive homo sapiens attempting to form a crude internet out of twigs and fire, to a dynamic multi-thousand-dollar business, with literally dozens of bored commuters tuning in on a daily basis to hear fascinating stories told in poor-quality audio in between ads …
For the good of the country, we are often told, the infighting between liberals (or, as they are properly understood, the party of nice rich people) and the left must cease. Exactly which faction is supposed to lower its guns first is implicit, but so far they refuse to do …
Fascism, for reasons that should not be difficult to divine, has been very much on my mind of late. My bedside table has borne a stack of books about the growth, nature, and origins of fascism, mixed in with the novels, for the last six months or so, and understanding …
It is a false dichotomy to say that in this world there are cat people and there are dog people, and never the twain shall meet. There are many — myself included — who love the company of both animals, and have been lucky enough to have both dog and …
Spring is in the air, and a young man’s heart turns to thoughts of love. I am not a young man, however, so while the rest of you are out enjoying sunshine and greenery and doing your grotesque courting rituals, I am inside basking in the warming glow of a …
It is a canard often, and falsely, leveled at Hollywood that it has no new ideas. In fact, Hollywood has innumerable new ideas; they’re just all bad. If you’re in the television or film business and have a really shitty idea that nobody asked for or could possibly want, you …
See, here’s the thing: the Spider-Man cartoon theme was, well, amazing. No sane person could argue against that. But the Captain America and Hulk cartoon themes were dumb as shit. And have they gotten any less shit-dumb in the last 40 years? No, they have not. All that has happened …
Earlier this week, we discussed how nostalgia for the superhero comics of ’60s and ’70s, on the basis that the Big Two were creating more original characters and taking more risks, is misguided not because it’s false on its face, but because the original characters being created were fucking ridiculous. …
Today, Wednesday, March 8th, 2017, is International Women’s Day. It will be marked by protests, marches, rallies, and a proposed general strike by women — the ‘Day Without A Woman’ — in reaction to the election of Donald Trump as president and the legislation, remarkably hostile to women, that he …
Many years ago, when ‘blogs’ were a thing, I wrote a series called the Geek Index, in which I examined the DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series in order to illustrate that comic books were written for mental defectives. It did not require close examination. Nowadays, geeks …
