Seriously, it beats me how people managed to develop such an appetite for sloppy sentimentality. With each successive hit feature, Pixar tests the limit of that appetite, and finds that there is no limit. Audiences drink up vats of Pixar’s…
Posted on: June 21st, 2010 | Comments (26)
It’s pretty simple, really. If you don’t like action films, don’t go see The A-Team. That is, if you complain when a film has explosions, and a lot of shooting and punching and special effects crashes and whatnot, and no…
Posted on: June 14th, 2010 | Comments (26)
We’re desperate for a laugh these days. Life was bad enough already without oil-covered seabirds. So naturally some gits arranged to provide us with oil-covered seabirds, really glopping the oil on them so they’re clearly immobile in the photos except…
Posted on: June 6th, 2010 | Comments (12)
Feck, as the Irish say. Feckin’ independent film, it’s not worth shite. I just watched Ondine, this Neil Jordon thing set in contemporary Ireland about a soulful fisherman played by Colin Farrell, who catches a young woman in his fishing…
Posted on: May 31st, 2010 | Comments (17)
Iron Man 2 is such a huge hit, it’s clear everybody’s going to see it regardless of critical praise or condemnation. Each of us can—or will soon be able to—fulminate about why it’s good, bad, or meh. We don’t need…
Posted on: May 10th, 2010 | Comments (43)
I woke up for the second morning in a row with a vague feeling that something terrible had happened. Then I remembered I watched the Oscars.
Posted on: March 9th, 2010 | Comments (36)
Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is messed up in some ways—we’ll get to that in a second—but it’s seriously beautiful at intervals that command attention. There’s a war theme in it that’s pursued with surprising gravity. Example: the Mad Hatter (Johnny…
Posted on: March 7th, 2010 | Comments (41)
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.
I just found the perfect job for myself: media consultant for General Laurent Nkunda. Now there’s a job with perks. And General, you need me. I know you need me because I just saw an interview with you in the…
What’s going on in Gaza now is pretty easy to understand if you think a little bit about the way military trends have been going in the past century-but you also have to be willing to take a cold look…
Well ain’t that nice: Bono got another award. That’s what will help our world be a better and nicer place, Bono getting another award. What makes this one even more sickening than the rest is the name of the award:…
We’re in trouble now, people. The Somalis of Minneapolis are joining the jihad. That’s according to a story that came out this weekend claiming that young Somali-Americans are flocking to dear old Somalia to join the jihad.
Greece was supposedly “gripped” with big scary riots this week. I love that TV talk, “gripped.” Was it a firm, manly grip? I don’t think so, actually. People throw words like “riot” around pretty easily, and these were about the…
The F/A-18 that crashed on to a Korean family’s house in Miramar yesterday had me remembering that movie Donnie Darko. That’s the one where the guy has to decide whether to let a jet engine fall on his bedroom or…
Every day this week I’ve gone to the computer and googled the same question: “How many attackers Mumbai?” And I still haven’t gotten anything like a straight answer. Of course the official Indian story is “ten.” Right. Ten guys, kids…
