If you’ve been following the story of Better Call Saul’s Jimmy McGill aka Saul Goodman aka Gene Takavic, you now know that crime doesn’t pay. At least not forever. After a 13-year narrative arc that began with Season 2, Episode 8 of Breaking Bad and ended Monday night, the smooth-talking strip-mall lawyer who kept crystal-meth … Continue reading Better Call Saul’s Bad Confession →

    UPDATE (12/01/15): Sylvester Stallone has won Best Supporting Actor from the National Board of Review. This is very happy making. UPDATE 2 (12/03/15): Carl Weathers, the original Creed, talks about how insulting Stallone may have gotten him the gig in Rocky One. Early on in Creed, a young Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) … Continue reading A Strange Review: Creed →

Perhaps not. But it's up there: a former slave's reply to his former master's request that he come back and work his farm. The response is priceless, and demonstrates both a subtle and lacerating wit that would have made a Twain or a Wilde grin ear to ear, and an innate intelligence that finally found its expression. … Continue reading The Greatest Letter Ever Written? →

So the studio has put out a five-minute preview of Creed, something more telling than is typical in a mere trailer, perhaps in honor of Philly's having actually named a day for Creed: Director Ryan Coogler along with Stallone and his new co-stars Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson were on hand in Philly for the proclamation of Creed Day on November 25th, which … Continue reading That Time I Worked for Rambo →

So Jillian worked with me at Commentary, as part of the online team. You can't be exposed to Jillian's whirlwind energy for long without being caught up in it. In what seems now like a really short period of time, she has gone from toiling as an online editorial assistant to smoking cigars with Christopher Hitchens … Continue reading Jillian Melchior, Superstar →

https://youtu.be/QajyNRnyPMs Only thing missing is Bogie or Coop walking in, guns drawn. H/T: my wife

"Hah?" is what you're saying to yourself right about now, or "Huh?" or "Heh?" or "Where's my avocado?" So I was rummaging through what's new on Netflix and came across this gem of a Britcom I had never heard of before, and if you know me, you know that's strange, because I love and adore … Continue reading A Strange Review: W1A →

So Roger Moore thought the erstwhile star of The Wire and Luther couldn't play James Bond because Bond should be "English-English," which is to say white. And the author of the latest James Bond novel who is not Ian Fleming thinks Elba can't play James Bond because Elba's too "street," which I think is code … Continue reading Idris Elba and the James Bond Kerfuffle →

The only stories I love to read more than "The Making of ..." this or that film are stories about films that almost got made, kinda got made, never got made. I recently treated myself to a popcorn book, The Greatest Movies You'll Never See, and although I knew broadly about several of these would-be … Continue reading A Very Strange Preview: Sergio Leone’s The Siege of Leningrad →

Best known for his role as Moe Green in The Godfather, Rocco won an Emmy for his role as a talent agent in The Famous Teddy Z, starring Jon Cryer (of Two and a Half Men and Pretty in Pink fame), one of those shows that critics loved but that could not find a durable audience. You know … Continue reading R.I.P. Alex Rocco →

So among the many Wayback TV channels I watch, where I can find classic and not-so-classic television shows from 30, 40, even 60 years ago, is Decades, on channel 483 (Verizon FIOS). You know what I mean by "Wayback"—not just old, but from a time when the networks' goal was the production of lighthearted entertainment … Continue reading Somebody Down Here Likes Him →

So if you're into movies, you've probably heard about this aborted project: a Tim Burton–directed "Superman Dies" starring Nic Cage as the Man of Steel. The script had among its writers Kevin Smith, of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Comic Book Men fame. So imagine: the director who gave us the Michael Keaton Batmans and … Continue reading The Superman Movie That Never Got Made, Thank Goodness →

So The Federalist asked a bunch of notables in the conservosphere, and me, what they were reading this summer. Click here for their, and my, responses. To help you get into the mood, below are two of the titles I included in my list, one of which seemed to catch the attention of a few commenters: “Lutherans … Continue reading Read This Not That This Summer →

Everyone's been culling from the history of ancient Athens a fitting metaphor to illustrate the financial disaster befalling modern Greece. As far as this story goes, I played with working Tiresias, the blind prophet, or Odysseus, the self-blinded king, into the post's title. But I'll just let the following report speak for itself: It was the rumours … Continue reading Socialism as Transableism →

You read correctly. The late Stanley Kubrick will be reanimated to direct his original screenplay, which will star the late Clark Gable, William Holden, and Gary Cooper, although I may be mistaken about that. The director of such classics as Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Roller Boogie wrote The Downslope … Continue reading A Strange Preview: Stanley Kubrick’s The Downslope →

Life is weird. Depressing, stupid, and tedious. And weird. Let's review. It's the mid-1980s, and I'm in college, and I'm working part-time for a travel agency whose owner happened to be good friends with Dick Van Patten. And so I write a sitcom for him (Van Patten, not the owner of the travel agency), about … Continue reading R.I.P. Dick Van Patten →

So I'd been in Delaware two and a half years before I discovered this indie bookstore in a part of town that was, err, in transition. Called Between Books, it featured sci-fi, comics, graphic novels, games (think Dungeons and Dragons type), and was a kind of community center for local geeks since the late 1970s. … Continue reading The Rebirth of an Indie Bookstore →

Nonsense vocables to replace "unwords" (simply affix the suffix -phobe), the defiance of logic, the blackballing of unvetted opinions, the shuttering of businesses whose owners do not "do what is required of them," the social media hate fests: it's been too easy to make comparisons between the progressive era in which we live and the … Continue reading Are We Living in Orwell’s World or Lewis Carroll’s? →

Well this was a weirdness. Made in 2014 and "released" only at various film festivals, Cut Bank missed theaters and went straight to DVD amid pretty crummy reviews. And while I agree that this was no masterwork, it was just quirky enough to keep me watching for its measly hour and 29 or so minutes. The film starts … Continue reading A Strange Review: Cut Bank →

Nothing. I'm talking about the Irish, of course. Patriot Games, The Devil's Own, The Crying Game, Blown Away, The Informant, The Jackal — it seemed like the only reason to have an Irish character in a movie released in the 1990s was so he could blow something, or someone, up, or at least try to. … Continue reading This Ethnic Group Got So Tired of Being Depicted as a Bunch of Terrorists, It Did This →

Has everybody calmed down from the whole Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner brou-haha? Transgenderism is so 1970s, people. If you had watched as much television as I did when I was a kid you would have been prepared for this business with that very special episode of Medical Center, when Robert Reed (aka Mr. Brady) became, well ... … Continue reading A Plea for Insanity →

The Lady Is of Dubious Moral Fiber Saturday Night’s All Right for Crocheting Smells Like Teen Spit-up Damn Sure Shoulda Gone to Rehab Jack & Diane & Karen Two Fewer Lonely People in the World Send in the Clowns Then Kill the Freakshow Bastards King of Spain ABD They Are the Champions Can't Take My … Continue reading Twenty Almost Good Song Titles →

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And … Continue reading Tomorrowland: Signifying Nothing →

You've been watching season 6 of Community on Yahoo! Screen, correct? No? Forgot it was on? Didn't know it was on? Never watched Community seasons 1–5? Whatever stage of denial you're in, please stand alerted: I am going to reveal the plot twist for episode 12 (109 if you're counting from the pilot). This very … Continue reading Community: Breaking the Fourth Wall and the Last Taboo →

So I've seen all five of these films (I think I saw Stargate, although I may just have dreamed it), but admittedly I caught only two of the jokes: from Airplane! and Gangs of New York. My hieroglyphics isn't what it used to be since I left New York and rarely encounter graffiti or journals of cultural anthropology anymore, … Continue reading Inside Jokes You May Have Missed Inside Big Movies →

So if you missed this sci-fi futuristic thriller starring Scarlett Johansson when it was in theaters, you were pretty much alone — at least if you're a fan of this genre, or of Johansson. It grossed more than $126 million domestic, which is not bad for a movie so stupid it should be classified as … Continue reading A Strange Review: Lucy →

  That is so 1981. You see, I tried to get a job writing for Letterman when he had a morning show, back in 1980 and I was at NYU. I sent a bunch of material and received this in response: Then the word went out that Letterman was getting a late night show. So, … Continue reading Saying Good-bye to David Letterman →

Given for an audience at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, this lecture does not have a lecture feel. It's quite entertaining: a lot of film history is on display as Scorsese explores our primeval fascination with light and movement, from cave paintings to early … Continue reading Martin Scorsese’s 2013 Jefferson Lecture →

I remember from my film-school days the Cinematheque. It was this room, in a 19th century building, part of the NYU "campus," with wooden desks bolted to the floor and a temporary movie screen onto which were projected 16mm prints of classic films. You went at 10 am with a cup of coffee and you … Continue reading Mad Max: Fury Road—The WORST Movie Experience of My Life →

This should be interesting: For its 40th anniversary edition, the Edinburgh International Television Festival is placing an emphasis on talent and bringing in more offshore content than ever. But, it’s keeping things homegrown for the prestigious James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture. The fest has recruited Scottish writer, director and producer Armando Iannucci “to show why TV … Continue reading Scotsman Armando Iannucci to Deliver MacTaggart Lecture →

Those of you who know anything about Welles know that besides being our greatest film director, he also had a great affection for Jewish people, Jewish culture, Jewish history (he was one of the narrators of the documentary Genocide) -- and Jewish deli. It was not an accident that Charles Foster Kane's most trusted associate was named … Continue reading Orson Welles at the Kosher Deli →

It's not the one in Bullitt. Not the one in the French Connection, under the El. It's not in Raiders of the Lost Ark or the one in To Live and Die in L.A. (again from director William Friedkin) where William Petersen drives the wrong way on a highway. It's not the one in the … Continue reading The Greatest Chase Scene in Cinema History →

So Samantha Cristoforetti couldn't stand the instant coffee she had to consume during her sojourn on the International Space Station. And can you blame her? Instant coffee is like instant sirloin—a mistake. Did I mention that Cristoforetti is an Italian astronaut? The SpaceX supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Friday morning, delivering … Continue reading This Is What I Call Italian Takeout →

So if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you've probably come across something about Orson Welles, to the effect that Welles was by far the greatest filmmaker this country ever produced so just shut up. A new essay in Vanity Fair about Welles's unfinished masterpiece The Other Side of the Wind … Continue reading IN HIS HEAD →

1. Luke, I am your cousin. 2. Leave the gun, take the asparagus. 3. Here's looking at you, Kevin. 4. Bonds. Treasury bonds. 5. You had me at "subpoena." 6. We'll always have parasites. 7. E.T. phone Dr. Rosenbaum. 8. Forget it, Jake. It's Ridgewood, Queens. 9. I'll make him an offer he might refuse. 10. … Continue reading 15 Almost Great Movie Lines →

Charlie Rose interviews the great Al Pacino. The stuff on The Godfather alone is worth your time. The character of Michael Corleone is one of American film's most compelling and inimitable. He begins as this college-boy war hero, with the pretty WASP girlfriend, sitting off in one corner of the garden wedding scene, a wall of separation … Continue reading “You Want It. I Think I Had to Have It.” →

https://vimeo.com/122378469 I found the first and final frames* of Kill Bill startling, and who could forget the haunting images from The Searchers.  Click here for a list of all the films explored in the video. I would love to know whether the filmmakers had the movies framed in just this way from the very beginning, in their head, perhaps, with … Continue reading Framing Images →

So there was this British chat show that ran from 1959–1962 called Face to Face, which is to our modern talk show what Oscar Wilde is to Family Guy. The host was a former politician, John Freeman, and his style was almost the 180 of Brian Lamb's, of C-SPAN fame. Instead of asking innocuous and ludicrously specific questions ("Do you … Continue reading Face to Face with Evelyn Waugh →

...is that this guy was not nominated for Best Actor. http://youtu.be/_METW96TAFw And, of yeah, that his director, Steven Knight (Eastern Promises), was also ignored. Tom Hardy spends the entire 85 minutes of Locke driving a car, and his performance is unrelentingly riveting. It's one thing to pull off the logistics (and gimmick) of long, long takes, negotiating … Continue reading The True Scandal of This Year’s Oscar Nominations… →

Crafted by one Caleb Slain, this is a wonderful mosaic of Hoffman's work. My favorite performances had to have been those given in Charlie Wilson's War, The Master, Mission Impossible III (in which he definitely plays against type, and to great effect), Doubt, and Synechdoche, New York. (His Oscar-winning performance as Truman Capote goes without saying.) See if you agree with me … Continue reading A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman →

Imagine some comic "genius" finds himself standing in an elevator next to a TV-network executive and decides he has 30 seconds to make a pitch for what he believes will be a groundbreaking situation comedy. COMIC GENIUS: Think "Adolf and Eva — their home life." Like The Honeymooners, only starring a genocidal madman and his lady … Continue reading Is This the Worst Sitcom in the History of Sitting? →

So when we were discussing the representation of Lutherans in film, a commenter (in my Twitter feed?) mentioned a title I had missed: Lars and the Real Girl. I missed it because I had not seen it. Now I have. When the film was released in 2007 I assumed, wrongly, and apparently like so many … Continue reading A Strange Postview: Lars and the Real Girl →

Sid Caesar, age 91. Who else had his stable of writers? Between Your Show of Shows, which debuted in 1950, and Caesar's Hour, he had Mel Brooks (whose time writing for Caesar is summed up in My Favorite Year, starring Peter O'Toole), Woody Allen, Neil and Danny Simon (yes—the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright had a writer brother who greatly influenced … Continue reading Your Showman of Showmen Is Dead →

The most recent iterations of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries feature Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Duke of Deductive Reasoning. My favorite Holmes, however, was played by Gene Wilder — not Sherlock, but Mycroft, the "smarter" brother, hence the film's title. This Mycroft has little respect for his … Continue reading A Strange Detective: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother →

A young statuesque woman, stark naked, her head wrapped in gauze, runs straight into a brick wall, splitting her skull open. She's a conceptual artist. Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), writer for a popular Italian magazine and our Virgil through this particular Roman hell, tries to interview the "artist" for a profile. Her responses to straightforward questions are … Continue reading A Strange Review: The Great Beauty →

Well, somebody had to pay to see this thing. As if the premise were not telegraphed with every one-sheet: Thirty years ago, thee sports rivalry was between light-heavyweight boxers Henry "Razor" Sharp (Sylvester Stallone) and Billy "The Kid" McDonnen (Robert De Niro). The Kid took their first match, while Razor won the second. But just before the … Continue reading A Strange Review: Grudge Match →

"We believe what we want to believe," Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a small-time con artist who deals in fake art, stolen goods, and bogus loans to hard-luck cases, tells FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). We do indeed. But let's not believe that this outrageously entertaining master acting class is history as much as a … Continue reading A Strange Review: American Hustle →

Could this sequel to the 2004 laugh riot about a San Diego newsreader and his male-chauvinisic-piggish companions possibly live up to all the hype we've endured for the past two months? Will Ferrell has appeared virtually everywhere in the guise of the man who will read only exactly what appears on the teleprompter in front … Continue reading A Strange Review: Anchorman 2—The Legend Continues →

RIP Tom Laughlin, at age 82. Man, does Billy Jack bring back memories. I remember seeing it with a couple of friends at the late Astoria Theater—we were all too young, technically, for an R-rated movie, but were, uh, tall for our age. Of course, the artistic merits of the picture were uppermost in our minds … Continue reading One Tin Soldier Dead at 82 →

The king is dead. And there shall never be another. Could anyone play the royal we with both the audacity of absolute power and the sheer pettiness of a working-man's spite like Peter O'Toole? Could anyone squeeze privilege, convey menace and fear, and break your heart with abject aloneness like O'Toole? Lawrence of Arabia. Becket. Lord … Continue reading In Honor of the Late, Great Peter O’Toole →

http://youtu.be/HFDE7tqTx0I And James Caan's (official) version: http://youtu.be/-EaR5x3Mh6M It's the ba-da-bing, don't you know. And the fact that Caan's Sonny knows from whence he speaks, while De Niro's is a street punk playing at being a made guy. Of course, De Niro would go on to give one of the greatest performances in American film history … Continue reading A Strange Audition: Robert De Niro as Sonny Corleone →

Just preparing you for another one of these experiences. http://youtu.be/_r58BSAK1HE

Need I say any more? http://youtu.be/yqlEr-7B5yQ

Jerry Ohlinger's Movie Material Store — oh the hours I spent in that place, both in its original location, on West Third Street, then on West 14th. (I never made it to its now final resting place, West 35th.) He had everything a movie memorabilia fanatic could want: one-sheets, two-sheets—massive foreign three sheets!—lobby cards, 8"x10"s, … Continue reading One More NYC Icon Bites the High-Rent Dust →

This guy hasn't wasted his life, I see. I mean, how many of you have 300,000 of anything? I have 300,000 complaints, mostly about the call quality of my iPhone 5, but other than that, nuthin'. http://youtu.be/DOCAZV-Tcu4

I think it's fair to say that most of the Elders of the Internet are on the NSA payroll at this point. http://youtu.be/iDbyYGrswtg

What a special man and a unique talent. Just don't cast him in a Judd Apatow or a Kevin Smith film. (Did you know Richard Pryor, a writer on Blazing Saddles, was supposed to play the sheriff, Black Bart? But his, for lack of a better word, inconstancy caused the producers to cast Cleavon Little.) And Wilder … Continue reading An Interview with Gene Wilder: June 13, 2013 →

Fools! There is an entire documentary, called Room 237 (not a sequel to Room 222, which starred the delightful Michael Constantine of Big Fat Greek Wedding fame, as well as Karen Valentine, who I had a crush on, not as big a crush as I had on Valerie Bertinelli, but big enough that had I … Continue reading And You Thought You Understood What Was Going on in The Shining →

So it's at a measly 37% at Rotten Tomatoes, but note that audience approval is significantly higher, at 63%. Yes, critics have been harsh to this film, which probably explains the empty theater I was sitting in. (The last time I was in a room that full of empty seats, I was 17 and on … Continue reading A Strange Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone →

I found the pilot for the much underrated but superb Tony Randall Show online. As Judge Walter Franklin, Randall was a kind of de-neuroticized Felix in constant high dudgeon. And, of course, there was the inimitable Mario Lanza. Enjoy. You're so lucky to know me. http://youtu.be/sF2CR5UWMsM http://youtu.be/O2SLCPQHlGg For some extra fun: outtakes from the original … Continue reading Speaking of the Late, Great Tony Randall… →

Star Fleet Command has commissioned -- Buckaroo Banzai! http://youtu.be/yhz4A5BCMAA Oh don't sit there like you've never heard of the greatest space cowboy in the greatest failed almost-franchise in the history of kitsch sci-fi cartoonery ever! http://youtu.be/AbBMzGUlIRw Here's a fun symposium with stars Peter Weller and John Lithgow, moderated by Kevin (Clerks) Smith: http://youtu.be/qi_ixer1-5M Now, everyone … Continue reading The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About the New ‘Star Trek’ Movie Is . . . →

So my wife and I were watching yet another episode of The Bob Newhart Show, because you have to travel 40 years back in time to find anything good to watch, and who should make an appearance as a friend of Emily's dad but Howard Morris. Andy Griffith fans will remember Morris as the inimitable … Continue reading The Funniest Sketch in the History of Sketch Funny →

I'm really really really sorry, but I've been really really really busy. Real quick, and like you care anymore, what with most of these films being three years old already: Lincoln: Script good not great, played too much to a 21st-century audience. So glad they didn't show the assassination. To watch that man die would … Continue reading Quick Takes on a Bunch of Film-Type Moving Pictures →

Frankly, it's not my favorite of his books. You might think it would be, my being a moviegoer and all. I much prefer Love in the Ruins. And yet, The Moviegoer set Percy, the would-be physician, off on a long and illustrious career — after it beat out Catch-22 for the National Book Award in … Continue reading How Walker Percy’s ‘The Moviegoer’ Won the National Book Award and Other Acts of Brutality →

Ever since childhood I have dreamed about attaching that headline to a blog post. "But how can that be, Anthony, when there wasn't even an Internet when you were a child?" Shut up. Now, thanks to Mollie Hemingway, I have the hook I've been waiting for. It seems that the Vatican house organ, L'Osservatore Romano, … Continue reading The Pope, James Bond, and Me →

One of my fave sites, Mental Floss, has compiled a list of 13 films that the legendary Alfred Hitchcock had planned to make but was forced to abandon owing to problems ranging from budgets to studio interference to star and script issues. Here are three of those films that caught my eyeballs: Hamlet, starring Cary … Continue reading 13 Hitchcock Films You’ve Never Seen. Because They Were Never Made. →

Lauren Davis over @ io9 has an eye-opening piece that lays out "9 Reasons to Elect a Supervillain President." What's frightening is that they all make eminent sense. 1. They have a strong vision for the future. 2. They'll go to great lengths to rebuild the country. 3. They won't stand for idiotic interview questions. … Continue reading Forget Obama and Romney: Here’s Why You Should Elect a Comic Book Supervillain →

Here's the problem with something called Seven Psychopaths: you pay your ransom of a ticket, another $350 for confections, you sit through more movie trailers than there are actual vehicular trailers, you try and glean the dialogue through all the whispering and giggling and texting and sexting, and you walk out the door thinking to … Continue reading A Strange Review: Seven Psychopaths →

While Ed Wood remains the greatest "making of a really bad movie" movie, Argo is now definitely a close second. Slick, funny, tense, telling — director and star Ben Affleck pulls off a helluva entertaining two hours, even if you do know how it all ends. Now we Americans have a hard time with history, and so I … Continue reading A Strange Review: Argo →

During the debate last week, Mitt Romney confessed to liking Big Bird, even though he intended to cut PBS's government funding. So Obama supporters have taken that to mean he really hates Big Bird, because if you don't give everyone what they want when they want it, you are ipso facto a hater. Doesn't matter. … Continue reading Why We Should All Hate Big Bird →

  “Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.” “How pitiful is an intelligence used only to make excuses to quieten the conscience."—Bread and Wine “I would willingly pass my life writing and re-writing the same book — that one book every writer carries within him—the image of his own soul.”

A couple of treats: first, one of the most famous openings in film history, that of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2: http://youtu.be/jmEqBdde5H0 Luciano Pavarotti sings one of the most famous, and moving, arias in opera, from Puccini's Turandot: http://youtu.be/lTUVdZ3tdls Plus, Chris Columbus gets a pad of his own — and in New York! Speaking of Chris Columbus, … Continue reading Happy Columbus Day Observed! →

If you figure out a way to live without a master, any master, be sure to let the rest of us know, for you would be the first in the history of the world. —Lancaster Dodd (NOTA BENE: This review contains spoilers.) Catharsis, in tragedy, has been defined as a kind of purgation, a purification, … Continue reading A Strange Review: The Master →

No, not in a new issue of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but in this post. So everyone knows the tale of the Count of Monte Cristo, yes? YES? Well, turns out that Alexandre Dumas, also the sorta author of The Three Musketeers, based the Edmond Dantès character on his father, Thomas-Alexandre, born in Hispaniola … Continue reading The Real Count of Monte Cristo Meets the Real Tom Sawyer →

Note to pretty young things "dating" older, wealthier married men: they never leave their wives. There's too much money, and mess, involved in the process. And there's always another pretty young thing in the wings. That is, if prison doesn't intervene. Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is a very wealthy hedge-fund manager trying to close a … Continue reading A Strange Review: Arbitrage →

And what legacy would that be exactly? Three profitable, well-crafted, power-punching spy thrillers starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, the CIAish agent/automaton who wakes up from his programming one day to realize he has no idea who he is. Where do you go from there? Well, it turns out that Treadstone, the rogue intelligence program … Continue reading A Strange Review: The Bourne Legacy →

Won't Back Down, a movie depicting a crummy public school that's apparently commandeered by a fed-up parent (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a concerned teacher (Viola Davis), is not sitting well with some. It seems both unions and parent groups are enraged (cue Middle East stock footage) by the notion that it's possible to take down the bureaucracy … Continue reading Movie Protested for Pitching Hope for Public Schools →

So I've been waiting for just the right voice to come along and snark the heck out of "the rise of popular neurobollocks." And writer Steven Poole has risen to the occasion: In my book-strewn lodgings, one literally trips over volumes promising that “the deepest mysteries of what makes us who we are are gradually … Continue reading ‘Your Brain on Pseudoscience’: The New Statesman Slaps Down Gladwell, Harris, Mooney & Ilk →

He told me that all the good simple people in his novels, Little Nell, even the holy simpletons like Barnaby Rudge, are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was (or rather, what he found in himself), his cruelty, his attacks of causeless enmity towards those who were helpless and … Continue reading Strange Quote of the Day: Fyodor Dostoyevsky →

Orwell imagines a kind of impossibly cosy past—the past as a sort of farmhouse kitchen with hams hanging from the rafters, a smell of old dog. As a Socialist, he should have been wary of the past. Once you start to yearn for kindly policemen, clean air, noisy free speech in pubs, families sticking together, … Continue reading Strange Quote of the Day: Anthony Burgess →

Any man can be 62, but it takes a bus to be 62A. —The Goon Show

For those of you who didn't stay up late last night to watch the ceremony (what else you could have been doing that was of greater importance defies imagination), here are some of the winners of the 2012 Ig Nobels, the awards dedicated to scientists and inventors too stupid to realize how dopey their achievements … Continue reading The Ig Nobel Award Winners of 2012! →

When you come back to Earth in a Soyuz capsule, you free fall, from space, at 500 mph, and the only thing that slows you down is a little parachute that pops out right before you crash into the ground. And the whole thing was designed by the same brilliant minds who were unable to … Continue reading Strange Quote of the Day: Rajesh Koothrappali →

Hells bells and footie pajamas! I almost forgot that today is "Talk Like Chester A. Arthur Day"! Sure, the rest of the world is celebrating "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (feh), but you wouldn't expect me to fall into lockstep with the rest of the world, now, would you? Otherwise, what is the point in … Continue reading Talk Like Chester A. Arthur Day →

We should not be afraid to encourage, as a combination of terror and trust in the people, the resurgence of an important figure in all egalitarian-revolutionary terror—the "informer" who denounces culprits to the authorities. —From "Joe Public v the Volcano," New Statesman Now who can argue with that?