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Be Excellent To Each Other

September 14th, 2020

Bill & Ted Face the Music is streaming on Prime Let’s talk about trilogies. Specifically, how unbelievably hard they are to pull off. It’s difficult enough to pull off a good movie, considering you need a strong script, solid direction, and competent actors. To pull off a decent sequel, you need to build on the world you first established and go in a new direction yet one that’s not so new it undoes the first film. To do all of that, and add a third film wrapping up everything? It’s easier to climb up Mount Everest blindfolded and naked. Even the most prestigious and profitable franchises... Read More

A Gorilla Never Forgets

August 31st, 2020

The One and Only Ivan is streaming on Disney+. Once upon a time, there was a mall, located in a faraway land known as Tacoma. This mall wasn’t the sort of mall you might have hung out at as an incorrigible youth. It didn’t have a food court. It didn’t have an Apple store. It didn’t have a mall security guard. It was not a gleaming bastion to capitalism. Instead, this mall was…different. Instead of chains, it was a haven of small businesses. Some of them were the kind of places that sold incredible art or wonderful used books. Other were the kind of places that would sell throwing... Read More

Superheavy

August 28th, 2020

Project Power is streaming on Netflix Next to westerns, there’s no other genre that has the flexibility that superheroes have in terms of storytelling. You might think that your options are limited to an MCU snarkfest or the Snyder cut of Justice League, truly an edgelord’s delight. But there’s more to superheroes than that. A hell of a lot more. Consider Wild Cards. Originally a series of anthology novels, the premise focused on an alien virus released over the skies of New York City. 90 percent of those infected died. Nine percent lived and were known as Jokers, people afflicted with crippling... Read More

Headspace

August 21st, 2020

7500 is streaming on Amazon Prime Americans are not good at empathy. We like to think we are, but the hard truth is, we suck at it. Why? Because empathy is a skill. It takes a great deal of time, effort, and imagination to try to put yourself into the place of someone different than yourself. Some people are better at it than others. Some people don’t see the value of attempting empathy in the first place. For example, since the murder of George Floyd, a great deal of white people have taken a hard look at their biases and privilege. They have had to reckon with the concept of systemic racism,... Read More

What A Croc

August 14th, 2020

The Pool is streaming on Shudder. There aren’t too many animals that genuinely scare me. Sure, I know that my place on the food chain isn’t anywhere near as high as I’d like to think. During a visit to the Denver Zoo a year or so back, I was spending time at the lion exhibit. A male lion padded up close to the barrier, sat down, then gave me a long look. That look was similar to the look I used to give the Taco Bell menu in college. As a middle-aged man with white beginning to speckle my beard, there are still a few critters that freak me out. One is chimpanzees, and as adorably cute as they... Read More

Love, Die, Repeat

August 14th, 2020

Sometimes, the best-case scenario is to be wrong. We all have our blind spots, right? I was wrong about Andy Samberg. Wrong as hell. For a while there, I had him pegged as a second-tier Saturday Night Live alum. I figured his comic persona was just like Jimmy Fallon, where he was all about being cute and non-threatening. He would probably get a talk show or a sitcom, and that would be that. Turns out Samberg did get a sitcom, the very funny and very sharp Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He’s also part of the comedy troupe The Lonely Island, and he starred in the criminally unappreciated Popstar: Never Stop... Read More

Blast From the Past

July 29th, 2020

The Old Guard is streaming on Netflix So there I was, in the midst of a bout of pandemic depression. The old ways of coping were gone for the moment. I couldn’t schlep to my local movie theater. I couldn’t take my kid to a ball game. Up until recently, the zoo and local museums were closed. Sure, there are plenty of trails close by, but even my dog seems to be getting burned out by the constant walks. I’ll pick up his leash and say, “Ready to go for an adventure?” His eyes get wide as if to say, “Jesus, again?” You know what that’s like. Nobody wants to socially distance. Nobody... Read More

Their Performance Is an Adventure

July 17th, 2020

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is streaming on Netflix I like to think I’m a relatively knowledgeable guy. I read a number of reputable news outlets daily, including The Washington Post and The Atlantic. I’m able to speak quasi-intelligently on a fairly wide range of topics. While I might not be a dazzling sophisticate like some of you, I’m not some drooling bumpkin. Yet up until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of the Eurovision Song Contest. I know, typical American. If you’re an ignorant savage like me, get ready for some righteous science. The Eurovision Song Contest... Read More

Forget Q-Anon, It’s Time To Go Down The Rabbit Hole To Discover A New Conspiracy Hero, S-Anon

July 17th, 2020

Listen, I’m not going to say that Kanye West dropped out of the race for President of the United States just because I announced I was running. After all, I’m writing this, not reading it out loud. But I do find it coincidental that after I announced I was running for president last Friday, within days, Kanye suddenly dropped his 2020 campaign. Kanye announces his brief run for president before backing out because he’s scared of running against me. Hmmm. Suspicious. Kind of like a lot of other behavior by famous folks lately. Perhaps you’ve been hearing about some of it. Certain big-name... Read More

Critic & Son – MCU Edition

July 8th, 2020

I’m writing this on the morning of July 2. By now, we should have been a couple of months deep into the summer movie season. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t miss it. Facts are facts, though. We’ve got one heck of a nasty virus wreaking havoc on the country, and one of the casualties is the modern movie-going experience. At this point, the only way I’d set foot in a theater is if I could be enclosed in a human-sized hamster ball. What is a summer movie, anyway? Well, it’s complicated.* Jaws is the first summer blockbuster, proving to studios that audiences would flock to theaters... Read More