TV Preview: Review, Season Two

As good as the first season of Inside Amy Schumer was last year, it was only the second best series to premiere on Comedy Central. The pole position here goes to Review, starring Andy Daly as Forest MacNeill, a reviewer who, instead of customary subjects like books, food, TV, or movies, reviews life experiences. I missed Review when it aired last summer, but spent this week catching up. Let me tell you, this show is an absolute gem.

Movie Review: Mr. Holmes

Mitch Cullen's novel A Slight Trick of the Mind traces several threads of the life of a 93 year old Sherlock Holmes. It is a punishing novel, dedicated to the exploration of the pain and regret accumulated by a man who has rejected emotional connection as a mode of interaction with the world. I enjoy having read it more than I enjoyed reading it. Mr. Holmes, the new film from Bill Condon starring Sir Ian McKellen and Laura Linney is, according to its title card, adapted from this novel. I suppose, in one sense, that is true. But in a broader sense, this is not an adaptation, but a full scale transformation. A mediocre novel has become a film of exceptional grace and power. A fitting demonstration of the principal players at the heights of their respective powers.

The Sexiest Man in the World's Five Sexiest Roles: A Ranking.

If you have known me very long at all, as few as ten or fifteen minutes is usually enough to do the trick, I have asked you who you think the sexiest man in the world is, and told you that there is only one correct answer. What is that correct answer, you ask? Who is the sexiest man alive? Jeff Goldblum.

Movie Review: Southpaw

There are a lot of reasons that I go to the movies. I like watching movies with other people in dark, cool theaters. I like the big screen. Sno-caps, perhaps? All sorts of great stuff. I also am a deep believer in film as an artistic medium. Some of the most profound interactions with art that I have had in my life have come in movie theaters. I saw Prisoners four times in the theater for precisely this reason. I find movies, well, moving. I laugh. I cry. Often I feel closer to characters on the screen than I do to people that I know in real life. Sometimes, I even go to the movies knowing that I will see people in pain. I saw The Passion of the Christ when it came out. I twice saw 12 Years a Slave. Both films are unflinching in their brutality, and both films offered me something outside of the brutality. Southpaw, the new film from Antoine Fuqua, director of Training Day, is a brutal film, I'm just not sure it offered much else.

Why Don't We Still Love the Terminator: Thoughts Stemming from a Second Viewing of Genisys.

This post contains spoilers related to the plot of Terminator: Genisys.

Last night, for the second time in recent weeks, I went to the theater to see Terminator: Genisys. I had in mind a particular kind of question (that was raised, two weeks ago over lunch with two of my buddies), what is it about this movie that prevented it from making money on the scale of Jurassic World? Both are contemporary reboots of important and well loved franchises. Both play a similar trick in pretending that later films (The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, and the two most recent Terminator installments). Both reboots try to draw from the same well of nostalgia that was palpable in the abysmal Pixels, what Grantland's Wesley Morris described as a "'was' is better than 'is'" mindset that runs through all of these films, a sense that the system of production has robbed these films of their core integrity. Now, before I go further I should admit that on my first viewing, I was not in love with this movie. In fact, I was on the record as saying that I thought Jurassic World was the better picture (I couldn't even muster up the will to write a review of the movie the first time that I saw it). The underlying thought here was that dinosaurs, even in a film that is totally uninteresting on every other level, are still boss, but that after two dips in the fetid waters of the Terminator franchise, Terminators were not. I was wrong.

Movie Review: Pixels, or, A Journey of the Soul

Sometimes you bring more to a movie than you intend to. Last night was one of those nights for me. The internet told me that my local discount theater would be playing Mad Max, the 1979 original, on film. I was in. I love George Miller, I love Mad Max, I love when movies are shown on film.

We Survived the Apocalypse: 1996-1998, the Years that Nearly Destroyed Music

If you had visited Britain in the year 560, you would have noticed that the world was divided into, speaking roughly, two types of structures. Old stone buildings, built by the Romans, but falling into disrepair and decay, and buildings of wood, with roves of thatched wattles and clay like something out of a Yeats poem. When the Romans were forced to abandon their holdings in Britain in 410, the native peoples of that island: Celtcs, Welsh, Scots, and the British lacked the infrastructural and engineering knowledge necessary to continue in the kinds of massive public building that the Romans had excelled at. It took a long time for their knowledge and skill to catch up with what had been lost.

Top Ten Fictional Sorcerers!

I know you've all been saying to yourselves "selves, there are a lot of fictional sorcerers, wizards, magicians, and whathaveyou in the world, but which ones are the best?" Well, I can't answer that question for you in an authoritative way. You're going to love what you love. My friend Christi, for instance, will surely insist that this list is bogus because Albus Dumbledore does not take the top spot (sorry for the spoiler). But this is my list, and I think it is a good one.

The Magic of Captain Beefheart

So today I'm driving from Michigan to Wisconsin, and as I cross clear the northern border of Milwaukee County I decide to pursue one of my hobbies and exit the freeway to complete the last leg of my drive on small state highways. At the same time I turn on Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's famous live album recorded at the Paradiso in Amsterdam in November 1980.

Movie Review: Trainwreck

Let me say, right off the bat, that this is one of those films that does not work on a cinematic level. There are strong performances, good jokes, funny bits, sight gags that elicited laughs at the showing I went to, and moments of genuine humanity and emotional heft. Every possible ingredient that one would need to carve out a solid, even a very good, movie is present, but they never congeal into anything other than 120 minutes of un-assembled pieces.

Movie Review: Ant-Man

There is a short story by Steven Millhauser that I am especially fond of called "In the Reign of Harad IV." It's about a master maker of miniatures, who is able to recreate with perfect living accuracy objects and people in profound miniature. One day, after making a recreation of a palace (complete with furniture in all the rooms, food on all the tables, elaborate detailing in the trim and decor, etc.) the maker of miniatures decides that the last great challenge available to him as an artist is to continue going smaller and smaller, to break beneath the boundary of the visible into the unseen world of infinite smallness. It's quite a story.

Emmy Predictions! And, Where Appropriate, Corrective Suggestions!

Hey everyone! Emmy nominations were announced today.

Movie Preview: A Look Ahead to this Weekend's Mr. Holmes

A film debuts in American theaters this week called Mr. Holmes, based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin. Two things here:

Book Rundown: What I've Been Reading the Last 7 Days

This post is exactly what it sounds like, some short reviews of what I read (for pleasure, not for work) last week!

Movie Reviews: Minions and Ballet 422

Let me get this out of the way up front: Minions is adorable. We all knew that it was going to be. These weird looking yellow rascals who just love their buddies (be those buddies fellow minions, Tim the teddy bear, or a pet rat found in the sewers of London) have a newborn puppy-like appeal.

Movie Review: The Gallows

Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I love going to the movies. I will see anything in the theater because there is something about watching a movie in the dark with strangers that strikes me as fundamentally sound. Like listening to a vinyl record through a McIntosh tube amp, you know? Just the way it is supposed to be. There are two kinds of movie going experiences, however, that generally stand out from the lot and are my favorite: any movie showing in an old school theater (without stadium seating, and maybe--like the Redford in Detroit--with nifty architectural and design features), and horror movies. So because my best friend is in town, and because my wife was having some of her co-workers over for some kind of box social, I went to see The Gallows.

Misunderstanding the X-Files, and the 201 Day Countdown

The new trailer for the 6 new six-episode X-Files limited event dropped recently and encourages you, in the days leading up to the new material to catch up on all 201 episodes of the iconic Fox series. But, that kind of encouragement totally misses the point. That is the worst way to watch The X-Files.

Redbox Review: Ender's Game, plus a look back at Pumping Iron

With Redbox Review it is my hope to answer a simple question, to wit: having decided not to see a particular movie in the theater, is it worth the $1.59 to rent that movie from your local Redbox? 

Adaptation is an art form. Which is why it has its own Oscar. The Harry Potter films, for instance, are masterful adaptations. They are also, nearly to a film, three hours long. Ender's Game, the 2013 adaptation of the 1986 young adult sci-fi novel by Orson Scott Card, clocks in at about 108 minutes, once you factor in opening titles and the credits, and you walk away from it with the impression that you really could have used the extra time. Characters like Alai, Petra, and Bean, essential not only to the novel but to the narrative of the film, are given so few character beats that it is impossible to say why they are invested in the life and story of Ender, played by Hugo's Asa Butterfield.

July 4th: Thoughts Related to Vince Staples and Nina Simone

Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam" was written in 1964 as a response to, among other events, the

16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Churches are still burning, 51 years later. Given that it is July 4th, today seemed like a good day to meditate on these questions--and because the way that I do that in my own life is through popular culture I thought I would write about Simone and the new album by Vince Staples.

An Open Letter to Trace Adkins, Piece of Shit

Dear Mr. Adkins,

My Week in Brief: This Week in Pop Culture as Experienced by Dave

There has been a lot of news this week, obviously. The Court came down 5-4 in favor of marriage equality, upheld ACA subsidies, and let Alito write an opinion on the death penalty (a decision roughly akin to letting a Golden Retriever drive a car, he was so excited by the wind in his face he forgot that he was supposed to be performing a complex task and people will inevitably be hurt). I was also on the road, visiting my grandfather in Wichita, Kansas. Consequently, I didn't end up writing anything for this site. Today, to make up the difference, I'll do a week in brief, a rundown of notable things that I watched, read, or listened to in the last week!