Sequels, Legacy Sequels, and Human Robots

Hollywood continues to profit from my generation’s entertainment conditioning. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton’s sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and Paramount’s animated “Transformers One” topped international box office charts over Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot.” -Rebecca Rubin, “Blah Blah Movie Titles Things You Know“, Variety.com I remain incontrovertibly annoyed at the existence of Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,… Read More Sequels, Legacy Sequels, and Human Robots

30 Sep 2024 AndrewLeave a comment

Jude Law Thinks Nazis Are, Wait For It… Bad.

In 1983 a group of Neo-Nazis, calling themselves “The Order” (because of course) committed some bank robberies and stole cars in Idaho. I was alive in 1983, and this is the first I’ve heard of this, probably because they never made it outside Idaho before the FBI brought the hammer down on them. I suppose… Read More Jude Law Thinks Nazis Are, Wait For It… Bad.

6 Sep 2024 AndrewLeave a comment

Naked Girls Get Extra Naked – A Fisking of Bridgerton Noise

There’s a level of show-biz bullshit that’s so profoundly dense it begs to be lit on fire. When you’re talking about Bridgerton, which turns Regency Romance into Current-Year preach-lit, the temptation is the more profound. And now they’re trying to sell getting the actress naked as some kind of transgressive act, because she’s overweight. This… Read More Naked Girls Get Extra Naked – A Fisking of Bridgerton Noise

17 May 202416 May 2024 AndrewLeave a comment

Tiger King Destroys Everything

The true beast of the Pandemic has returned, and now it will devour it’s own genre. Behold, as the most popular documentary of this century destroys Fair Use: The rule of Fair Use requires that the use of a content be “transformative”, i.e., you’re using it to do something with it other than what the… Read More Tiger King Destroys Everything

16 May 2024 AndrewLeave a comment

Looney Tunes, Fandom, and physical vs. Streaming

It’s become a commonplace that streaming services are treacherous. You put your faith in them to provide you with content, and they pull it according to bean-counter whim and puritanical outrage. Physical media is the only way to preserve culture! Even directors are getting in the act: Christopher Nolan recently made headlines when he humorously urged fans… Read More Looney Tunes, Fandom, and physical vs. Streaming

28 Nov 2023 AndrewLeave a comment

The Meme Self-Regenerates: A New Old Song from the Beatles

Perfectly, the track is called “Now and Then”: “Now and Then” has a similar provenance as “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” the other two “new” Beatles songs to have been released since 1970: All are rough Lennon home demos recorded during the late 1970s and provided by his wife Yoko Ono in 1994 for the… Read More The Meme Self-Regenerates: A New Old Song from the Beatles

2 Nov 2023 AndrewLeave a comment

Stuck Culture, the Microcosm: Variety Writes about Mean Girls Like It just Came Out.

I don’t know why October 3rd is Mean Girls Day, and I have no intention of finding out. Such things have become loathsome to me (especially Star Wars Day, which was funny once, and is now agonizing, especially when the deeper dorks pair it with “Revenge of the Fifth” on Cinqo de Mayo. No one… Read More Stuck Culture, the Microcosm: Variety Writes about Mean Girls Like It just Came Out.

5 Oct 20234 Sep 2024 AndrewLeave a comment

Quentin Tarantino Discusses his Flop

I could spend a lot of time re-writing Variety headlines to make them not gibberish. Quentin Tarantino has been making the international press rounds in support of his “Cinema Speculation” book tour, recently speaking to Spain’s Diari ARA about how one of his only box office bombs shook his confidence as a film director. That bomb would be “Death… Read More Quentin Tarantino Discusses his Flop

13 Apr 2023 AndrewLeave a comment

Matthew Perry is Clearly Doing Great

The clickbait got me. I like to think that I’m above all this noise, but every now and again something so artlessly pathetic crosses my awareness that, like a hungry jackal, I delight in the prospect of tearing it to shreds. And since no one does “artlessly pathetic” quite like Matthew Perry, here we are.… Read More Matthew Perry is Clearly Doing Great

27 Oct 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Cultural Dissociation is the new Rite of Spring

I come to the chilly end of April and realize how little of pop culture has any impact on me anymore. The front page of Variety may as well be intel from another planet. For example, James Corden leaving “The Late Late Show” is the first time I realize that he was the host of… Read More Cultural Dissociation is the new Rite of Spring

29 Apr 2022 AndrewLeave a comment