“Now if only they’d make ‘Machete’ into an actual movie instead of just a fake trailer.” That’s how I ended my review of “Grindhouse” — one of my top 10 movies of 2007 — and it turns out that writer-director Robert Rodriguez had been thinking along those lines for a long time. In fact, a full screenplay […]
I enjoy a good mystery series in the summer. I’m the one guy that watched “Hidden Palms” a few summers ago. I watched “Happy Town” this summer up until ABC canceled it. I tried watching AMC’s “Rubicon,” too, and would’ve succeeded except that the first half hour of the series bored me to tears — […]
“Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” based on a comic book, takes two universal interests of young males — games and girls — and combines them into one thing. The title character (Michael Cera, as usual playing a slight variation on George Michael Bluth) has to fight off seven evil exes of Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in […]
“Fever Dream,” the latest Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child novel, opens with FBI Special Agent Pendergast and his wife, Helen, hunting a lion in Africa. I thought, “Uh oh, I don’t really want to read P&C’s take on ‘The Ghost and the Darkness.’ “
Critics have often emphasized that “Friday Night Lights” isn’t just for football fans, because so much of the drama happens off the field. That’s completely true, but what’s not often mentioned is the flip-side of the equation: The on-field stuff is often unrealistic or melodramatic enough to turn off football fans.
I don’t really like traveling. I like the idea of having been someplace, but the actual process of traveling is stressful to me. I’m always worried I forgot to pack something important and that will ruin my whole trip.
Danielle, one of my comment-thread friends, recently brought up “The Wedding Singer,” an Adam Sandler picture that I vaguely remember as being good. Sandler used to crank out funny movies almost effortlessly: “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore” are contemporary classics, and I think “The Waterboy” and “Big Daddy” deserve to be in that discussion, too. He has plenty of misfires, no doubt. By my reckoning […]
10. Smashing Pumpkins — “1979” — This song reminds me of driving around with my friends in Fargo, N.D., during my high school years. The “1979” of the title is a stand-in for anytime, I assume, since Billy Corgan’s teenage years were actually the 1980s. 9. Camera Obscura — “Before You Cry” — Even though it starts off with […]
20. Traveling Wilburys — “Handle with Care” — George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne singing about heartache around the same microphone. ‘Nuff said. 19. Dire Straits — “Walk of Life” — I remember this song, with its wonderful Hammond organ intro, was in heavy rotation in the family room of my childhood home. In […]
30. Sarah McLachlan — “Full of Grace” — This song was not written for the sequence in “Becoming Part 2” that follows Buffy’s painful choice to send Angel to hell to save the world. But it seems like it was. When music and images work together like that, it’s the highest form of artistic achievement. 29. Stone […]