‘Comic Book Men’ opens up the 4-color world
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 throwaway silliness, but in a good way (Movie review)
“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.”
‘Phantom Menace’ in 3D: Now THIS is podracing (Movie review)
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 […]
Network TV takes another crack at found-footage horror with ‘The River’
First episode impressions (TV review): The creator of “Paranormal Activity” brings found footage to the small screen.
With ‘The Visible Man,’ pop-culture thinker Klosterman adds new skill to his resume: Sci-fi novelist (Book review)
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.
‘The Descendants’ another low-key masterpiece from Alexander Payne (Movie review)
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 […]
‘Star Wars’ fans get 3 Darths for the price of 1 in ‘Darth Plagueis’ (Book review)
“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.
First episode impressions: ‘Smash’ (TV review)
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 […]
First episode impressions: ‘Alcatraz’ (TV review)
“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.
‘Dating Rules from My Future Self’ makes web TV cool again (Review)
My top show of 2007 was a web series — “quarterlife” — and three of my top 10 of 2008 were web series, headlined by “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.” I was even titling my year-end lists “Top 10 TV/Internet shows.” It definitely seemed like TV and the internet were well on the way to merging […]