This week, I fulfilled my primary film criticism duties by writing about a nice feature debut by Zeina Durra. It’s one of those films that’s good enough to immediately stir up interest over what she does next.

On the other end of the film quality scale, I wrote about a favorite bad movie that is the pure definition of “Guilty Pleasure” to me. Everyone seemed to especially enjoy the opening paragraph.

I also had a music review go up. I faced the always tricky challenge of writing about something that didn’t particular move me one way or the other. So I tried to address that very honestly in the review, albeit in a slightly roundabout, hopefully creative manner.

Finally, our weekly List Inconsequential feature focused on great dive bars, allowing me to write about a local Asheville treasure that I only recently sampled for the first time. Honestly, I felt like I was stretching the “dive bar” descriptor in writing about this place, but they have an award with that very designation hanging on the wall. I envy my colleague who wrote about The Plaza in Madison, although there were other bars in Madison that came to mind first, given the topic. I also could have advocated for a couple places in Stevens Point that could have fit the bill nicely, but, alas, it’s been too long since I’ve sampled the establishments to write knowledgeably about them.