Missives From the Reality-Based World
It’s been a while since I’ve written in this category, mostly because I haven’t really seen anything worth posting on lately and I don’t want the damned thing to turn into a monotonous whine about how movies were so much better in The Olden Days. But you know, some of them really were. I’m not talking about oldschool Star Wars*; […]
28 Jul 2007 at 00:04
Warren
General Foolishness, Why Culture Sucks, You Must be F***ing Kidding
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Wherein we read my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling. Before we proceed: Spoilers. More than a few, because I have to discuss a few things, particularly the ways in which Rowlng somewhat pissed me off with this seventh novel. I hate deliberate spoilers. I’ve written a few books myself and know what it’s like […]
AI was not well received by critics in much the same way that a grenade is not welcome in a detachment. The attitude seemed to be run, run away from this before it explodes chaotically. Well, that wasn’t how I saw it, and it had damn little to do with how cute Haley Joel was back then — […]
Paramount’s remastering Trek:TOS for HD, and they’ve remapped all the exterior FX shots using digital tech. My first thought was travesty. But you simply must, must see this exterior from Space Seed (Khan, remember?). Here’s 1701 heaving to next to the Botany Bay. If you thought that was good, you should see it in motion. I feel […]
Alfonso Cuarón can do no wrong. Well, all right, he probably can and surely will — but in the meantime, I have to say his movies do not suck. First he got himself seriously noticed with the exploits of two good friends and a very wlling lady in Y tu Mamá También; after that he shifted gears, some could […]
It’s not every day that one has the opportunity to get a sneak peek at an unauthorized autobiography, so when I was given the chance to do so a few weeks ago I decided to act. I’m very glad I did. Destined for Destiny, the tome in question, purports to have been written by none other than George W. Bush, with some […]
Okay, okay, I confess to being a smart-ass. Japan’s been on my mind lately, partly because of the way North Korea’s been jacking around, and partly because some really good films have been coming from overseas. Toho, for instance, recently released a two-disc definitive DVD of Gojira (the 1954 all-Nipponese version) along with Godzilla, the 1956 redux with […]
Early in this movie there’s a conversation between Gregory Peck, who plays a Southern small-town lawyer, and his young daughter Jean Louise, played by Mary Badham. She asks to see his watch, then mentions that according to her brother Jem, the watch will one day belong to him. “What are you gonna give me?” she asks — and […]
Two shows. That’s all you really need to know. Starting at 7 PM on Sci-Fi Channel… Doctor Who — the BBC refit of the classic series. The first season was utterly spank. This season’s been good so far too. The show retains its exuberance and strangeness, but has received a massive upgrade in FX quality; fortunately the […]
Wherein I continue to flog the merits of movies made well before I was conceived in favor of the tripe produced by Hollywood today… Sorcerers, crocodiles, ethnically-inappropriate mushrooms and overheated dinosaurs are just some of the things to be seen in Fantasia, a cartoon that’s never really found a niche. Disney couldn’t really have been blamed for the commercial […]
I’ve more or less given up on American movies, or at least the stuff currently being spewed by Hollywood. There seems to have been one marketing focus group meeting too many of late. Movies are made by committee, cynically packaged based not on quality, vision or merit, but rather on what’s likely to sell. It’s so […]
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