Welcome to a new feature where I revisit old “Star Wars” novels when inspired by new works. The inspiration for this first entry is James Luceno’s “Darth Plagueis,” which reads like a fascinating history book and has two entire other novels take place within it while also overlapping with most of “Episode I: The Phantom […]
First episode impressions (TV review): Kevin Smith is our guide through enjoyable days in the life of comic-store clerks in New Jersey.
“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is a stupid blockbuster movie in the best sense of the phrase, just like its predecessor, 2008’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
In the 1983 documentary “From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga,” George Lucas talks about how a lot of movies like to show off the work of the construction crew on screen. But he prefers to spend just enough time on an establishing shot that viewers know what they are seeing; he […]
First episode impressions (TV review): The creator of “Paranormal Activity” brings found footage to the small screen.
Readers of his essays know that Chuck Klosterman has long been fascinated by the idea of the true reality of human behavior. He wrote an essay a few books ago essentially arguing that the only way to truly know a person is to observe them when they don’t know they are being observed.
I just got done reading Chuck Klosterman’s novel “The Visible Man,” which deals with the nature of reality. In a wider sense, all pop entertainment deals with the problem of reality, because fiction is the opposite of reality. Not just in the obvious sense of “made-up things vs. real things,” but in the sense that […]
“Darth Plagueis” (January, hardcover) is arguably the most hyped-up “Star Wars” novel since 1996’s “Shadows of the Empire,” with the ForceCast (which plans an upcoming “Darth Plagueis” roundtable episode) calling it a “game changer” and Entertainment Weekly — which normally doesn’t cover “Star Wars” novels with much depth — posting an excerpt.
I have to confess that I generally don’t enjoy musicals. With the notable exception of the “Buffy” musical episode, the genre doesn’t work for me. Most musicals are repetitive, using songs to emphasize what we already saw in the between-songs scenes; many of them repeat the same song multiple times; and often the overall story […]
“Alcatraz” (8 p.m. Central Mondays on Fox) demonstrates that a show can be too high-concept, and also that how you present a show in your previews can influence how people view it.