All about me.
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 …
The beat goes on at my local comics shop, by which I mean the beating of my skull as I shell out scarce cash for this globulous piffle. I keep telling myself if I can just get through the month of May, which future generations will refer to as ‘The …
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 …
Every week brings a new division. As I write my annual May Day sermon, division is everywhere I look. Following the death of another black man at the hands of the police, a number of Baltimore police officers have been indicted for his murder, causing division between those who think …
It seems like forever since I’ve done Four Colors to Infinity, the inexplicable semi-weekly feature where I spend a bunch of money on randomly selected comic books and read them even though I hate them. Maybe this is because I’ve been busy hanging out with actual people in the real …
As I write this, I am sitting in an apartment in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Six months ago, I was writing from an apartment in the University District of Seattle, Washington. There are many things that make the two places distinct, but today I am thinking about …
Netflix’s newest original series, Daredevil, is also the latest attempt by Marvel Comics’ multimedia engine to dominate the world of serialized television the way it has dominated the world of blockbuster movies. It is also the most recent attempt to bring the story of Matt Murdock, the blind attorney who defends …
Perhaps it is best, given his reputation as a rather difficult person to work with, that Dan Harmon confine himself to a medium in which the cast need not be in his presence, and the majority of the crew be separated from him by an entire ocean. With the debut …
A problem I’ve always had with Iranian cinema, from Abbas Kiarostami to Asghar Farhadi, is that its films tend to be…how can I put this? They’re a bit deliberate. A bit studied. A bit slowly paced. A bit…boring. This may seem like blasphemy, especially coming from someone who values …
Kicking the poor in the teeth never goes out of style, particularly when questions about the nation’s economic future are troubling the minds of many. Ever since food stamps were introduced in 1939, one of FDR’s many radical ideas about how you shouldn’t have to suffer and die just because …
I’ve been to a lot of major league ballparks in my day. I’ve seen games at fully half of the existing 30 MLB stadiums, and if you count ballyards that are now defunct or no longer used for baseball, that adds four more. While I haven’t had the chance to …
About a month ago, IFC — not exactly a broadcast powerhouse, but the home of some appealingly quirky programming including David Cross’ sporadically brilliant The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret — announced that it would not be renewing Garfunkel and Oates for a second season. This came as a shock to …
Anthology shows are all the rage these days because if the show is a hit, you can avoid the actors asking for too much money to do the second season by just firing everybody and bringing in a bunch of scrubs. Thanks, True Detective! The latest offering in this vein from …
