Finally, fa-HINE-ally, someone has made a proper comedy. Armando Iannucci, to be exact, with In the Loop, his annihilating satire of recent Anglo-American misadventures in the Middle East. It’s getting fantastic reviews and it deserves every one of them. It’s…
Posted on: July 26th, 2009 | Comments (13)
So Harry Potter, the latest one. Making a lot of money. Yep. How many more to go? Ten? Oh, only two? Well, good, that means they’ll finish up before the kids turn thirty.
Posted on: July 19th, 2009 | Comments (28)
Public Enemies is an oddly soft, slow, elegiac film, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of my best friends are elegiac films. But it seems a regrettable approach to its main subject, John Dillinger, if you know anything at…
Posted on: July 7th, 2009 | Comments (14)
Washington acting like a person Director Tony Scott ought to put up a statue to Denzel Washington in his sculpture garden, then pray to it at least three times a day to express his gratitude for the way the actor…
Posted on: June 14th, 2009 | Comments (9)
I’m supposed to be reviewing The Hangover here, but the problem is I saw it when hung over and can’t remember much of it. That’s what you call “irony.” (Manhattans and red wine, if you must know.) I’d heard that…
Posted on: June 7th, 2009 | Comments (13)
The latest Pixar film Up is being received as if it were better than the Second Coming. It represents the Pixar team’s effort to be even more lugubrious than in their last animated film—more lugubrious than in their last five…
Posted on: June 2nd, 2009 | Comments (50)
I seriously thought my eardrums had burst a couple of times during Terminator Salvation. The movie sounds like jets crashing into a junkyard, one after another, with intervals of loud pompous narration delivered via public address system between the screeching…
Posted on: May 24th, 2009 | Comments (20)
Listen to the Radio War Nerd podcast [subscribe here] with guest Gunnar Hrafn Jonsson of Iceland Public Radio on the massacre in Orlando and how online Islamic State jihadis are dealing with battlefield defeats and the shrinking caliphate. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd through the show’s Patreon page.
The political establishment’s racist, authoritarian reaction to the 1992 LA riots—blaming broken black families, massing cops and troops, and Ron Paul’s advice to his family on how to kill black “animals” and get away with it…
Waiting for Dubya and his Texas cronies to decide whether to hit Iraq is like waiting for Christ. It’s so goddamn slow, and you start kinda doubting it’s gonna happen at all. American tv reminds me of Sunday school teachers…
What’s a Chechen? It sounds like the start of a joke, but there’s no punchline. I’m supposed to write about the war in Chechnya this issue, but…the war itself is kind of interesting, but something’s missing. Maybe you don’t realize…
I told you so. Told you nothing would happen with India and Pakistan. Told you the whole idea of “Hindu militants” was laughable. But Christian militants — that’s a whole ‘nuther thing. Christians are stone killers. You put a…
Will India and Pakistan ever finish the cat-fight and get on with a real war? “We live in hope,” like my grandma used to say — but don’t hold your breath. Listening to the Indian and Paki generals shaking their…
My first fan letter from the eXile was an email from some guy in Michigan who wanted the latest news on Tom Clancy. Yeah sure, that’s why I’m here — to help you kiss that rich fat coward’s ass. For…
Ever seen a Monster Truck show? They’re big in Fresno. The thrill is watching civilian cars get crushed by giant 4×4’s. But it’s nothing compared to the monster truck show the Israelis have put on in the last few weeks….
Ames asked me to write a column on how all the wars are going, kind of a war reviewer. And I said yes on one condition, that you people don’t send me emails telling me liking war is a sign…
