#7 — Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004) Movies often trade in cataclysm and heartbreak, sending characters sprinting down rainswept streets chasing after that one urgent moment destined to change everything. That’s certainly stirring, but there’s also an inherent phoniness to it, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Seven
In tribute to my favorite post of the holiday season, Twenty-third in a series… (Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”) Continue reading Away in a manger, no crib for his bed
“Outside the morning was bright. I liked the holy, rejoicing look of it: the many gray Christmases of my childhood had depressed me. And apparently not just me: one year the holiday card my mother sent out was an October photo of my brother and me, with a caption that read The children. In some dead leaves.” –Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, 2009 “SPEAKING IS A PRECIOUS WASTE OF SILENCE. IT IS DIRTY, IMPURE TRANQUILITY. BESIDES, YOU’RE NOT PEOPLE. SO JUST REMEMBER THAT I’M NOT SPEAKING TO YOU. SERENITY, SHATTERED WITH A CHAOS OF SOUND.” –Doug Moench, MARVEL … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
As I sit and type, the snow is piling up outside. It’s been nearly nine years since we moved from Wisconsin for parts south, so it’s been nearly that long since I’ve looked out my own window and seen a … Continue reading One for Friday: John Kruth, “Here When You’re There”
#8 — The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004) Those whose entire knowledge of superheroes derives from visits to the cineplex–and I still find it remarkable that a working background acquired through such means could be so much more thorough that I … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Eight
Craig Ferguson is my new hero, if only for creating a thematically sensible reason to have the following featured musical performance on his show. (Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”) Continue reading It’s getting kind of hard to believe things are going to get better
Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009). Clearly Greg Mottola decided the Superbad path was the one to follow. He edges ahead a few years, focusing on college-aged youth who are all spun around by their romantic anguish and general horniness. Noticeably autobiographical in nature, the film is set in the late nineteen-eighties and features Jesse Eisenberg as a bright young man whose plans for graduate school are derailed causing him to seek summer work at the crummy amusement park in his hometown. It’s amusing enough, but also shaggy to the point of being aimless. Nothing sticks beyond the suspicion that Kristen Stewart … Continue reading Cassavetes, Dick, Donaldson, Frankel, Mottola
#9 — Up (Pete Docter with Bob Peterson, 2009) Let’s start where everyone starts in discussing Up, with the sequence that seemingly inspires universal agreement about its excellence. With just a few minutes of screen-time, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Nine
The mad rush of Academy Awards precursors is underway, and one of the biggest hit today as the Los Angeles Film Critics Association announced their annual awards. It’s so very early in the process, but this is already looking like another one of those years where the eventual Oscar winners will practically lock in early, and the critics’ organizations and other groups will be spending as much time ratifying those nearly predetermined selections as they do hashing out bold proclamations of merit. I note this because I take offense at any of their choices. Indeed, as a movie observer who … Continue reading No Man Can Be a God and Win At All
My day at work involved a scene that looked a little like this. So I’m tired. Too tired to post much more than that. As with most comic book covers that grace this site, the image comes courtesy of one … Continue reading Anybody hear the forest fall?
