I’m not sure I can fully explain to you how I feel about violence in movies, but I’ll try, beginning with an anecdote. Years ago, a very good film called Mad Max: Fury Road was released. Like all right-thinking people, I loved it. Brilliantly shot and edited, intelligently written, skillfully acted, all in service of […]

There’s a photo I remember seeing not too long ago. It was taken in Irpin, one of the suburbs of the Ukrainian city of Kyiv. The first thing I noticed was a Ukrainian soldier staring downwards, a look of numb shock on his face. What he’s looking at is a dead family. A mother and […]

For decades in movies, we had people punching, kicking, shooting, stabbing, exploding, and otherwise dismembering legions of bad guys. The 1970s gave us Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, and Charles Bronson. The 1980s gave us Arnold Schzwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis. The 1990s gave us Wesley Snipes, Will Smith, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The 2000s […]

I carry regret like a stone around my neck. Time and experience have taught me how to manage it, and for the most part, that stone is nothing more than a pebble. Once in a while it becomes a boulder, one that stops all forward momentum and drags me down. But that’s the nature of […]

What’s a Ghostbusters movie supposed to look like? Some people are purists, and the only scenario they can imagine is the further adventures of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson. Spend a little time online checking on Ghostbusters fandom, which I don’t recommend, and you’ll hear variations of “I just want to […]

We still have talk shows, and we still have late night talk shows, but not the way they used to be. Bill Maher still trots out his weaponized snark to gab about politics and get mad at the youths. Jimmy Kimmel trots out his weaponized snark to trigger Donald Trump, as does Stephen Colbert.  But […]

A combination of a journalism assignment at the Oregon Dunes and the recreational usage of psilocybin mushrooms led Frank Herbert to write “Dune,” a sprawling, five book saga. Beloved by many, they featured intergalactic warfare, giant worm-related destruction, and trenchant criticism of politics and religion. On the one hand, you’d expect that as a lifelong […]

There are two kinds of crime movies that I’m an absolute sucker for. The first are the ones about professionals. With movies like The Town, Thief, and The Driver, we’re introduced to crooks who live and work by a code. They consider the situations they’re walking into, the kinds of people they’re likely to deal […]

Years ago, I had the opportunity to buy an Alien. By that I mean a xenomorph, one of the double jawed critters that have joyfully romped with Sigourney Weaver through multiple movies. In those movies, we’re led to believe there are a metric ton of them, so many that if you were to throw an […]

These days, it’s hard to be nuanced. The United States is profoundly polarized, and we’re constantly encouraged to to self-sort, to live, work, and socialize with other like minded people. Why? It’s easier. We say we want unity, but that really means we just want people to think and agree with our positions. It’s still […]