Recorded the new Shallow & Pedantic podcast last night, and put it up today. What a masterpiece of efficiency! It’s mostly us gibbering about which of Cannon Film’s vast vault is actually worth watching, and several times blaming them for Chuck Norris’ film and TV career. But we had fun. In other news, I’ve uploaded… Read More Let’s Have Another Cup of Podcast, Let’s Have Another Slice of ‘Zine
Playing as much CK2 as I do, I took notice of this Netflix show when it first popped up. I love the Early Medieval Period as the Wild West of Europe, when kingdoms were new and ambition was the way forward. When I first tried to watch it, I was turned off by the low… Read More Quick Review: The Last Kingdom
I’m on my seventh or eighth rewatch of this show. It may be the only show from this era I was a fan of that I’m still a fan of (other than Breaking Bad, which I don’t rewatch nearly as much). In many ways it’s an anti-sitcom, that manages to have all the satisfaction a… Read More A Series of Thoughts on Community
Of course I watched it. And I laughed really hard. Tiger King is the best mockumentary since Spinal Tap. All mockumentaries rely on filming the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the gap between someone’s perceived competence and their actual competence. All the principle characters are not in on the Joke: Joe Exotic is a lunatic, a narcissist, a… Read More When Humans Attack – Tiger King 2
See how far you can get into their marketing gibberish before you give up. There’s so many things wrong with this. First of all, Robert Oppenheimer was not an heroic figure, however poetic his turn to the Baghavad-Gita was upon viewing what his science had wrought. He was a lab coat surrounded by lab coats.… Read More Christopher Nolan is Making a Movie About Robert Oppenheimer, and Variety Wants Me to Care
I deserve to be whipped for writing about this, as it’s fairly reeks of 2014, but I’ve seen it pop up on Twitter, and recently. Most of the time this is discussed in typical internet gibberish, but within it is an attempt to analyze human behavior, so there’s something worth commenting on. If you’re not… Read More Star Wars and the Social-Sexual Hierarchy
I’ve written on the Indiana Jones series before, explaining the problem I had with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A lot of people complained about the tiredness of that movie, the strain of it, and they were right to do so. But for me the problem was theological: So sure, say the movies, Indiana Jones,… Read More An Encomium of Pankot – In Defense of Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom
The Boys at RLM Recently did one of their “list” re:View episodes, about the films of John Carpenter. Let the record state that I’m not the biggest fan of this particular format. re:View works best as an opportunity to dust off an old/forgotten piece of cinema, turn it over backwards and front and make a… Read More Aesthetics vs. Prophecy: John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A.
Somewhere on I-81 in Virginia, there’s a billboard for Cracker Barrel, because of course there is. If you find yourself on the interstate and there isn’t a Cracker Barrel within 30 miles of you, then start taking pictures of the alien plants and the non-Euclidean geometry, because you’ve slipped into an alternate dimension. Anyway, this… Read More The Reproducibility Trap, Or Why Everything Original and Curated Becomes Re-Heated Crap
Time for Low-Rent Clint Eastwood to Ride Again. The only question is Why, and there’s only one answer. No one is going to enjoy this. Harrison Ford is too old for this. He was too old for it in the last movie. It’s going to be regurgitated trash, that will almost but not quite pay… Read More Oh Good, a New Indiana Jones Movie
