The Star Wars movies are the crown jewel of franchise filmmaking, and sometimes it’s a little hard to see why. Look at it like this: Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are classics for a reason. That’s a no-brainer since they are fun, fast-paced, and chock-full of memorable characters. So far, so good. Then Return of the Jedi hits us, and it’s really […]

Work parties are awful. We all know that. But holiday work parties occupy a very specific place within one of the nine circles of Hell. What level would you find mandatory office mixers on, I wonder? Gluttony? Lust? Heresy? All of the above? I know a little something about this. Since I work from home, […]

The day my father died began the same way as any other day. The Earth turned, the sun came up. At the time, I was a hilariously mediocre college student, blissfully pissing away my higher education. That evening, my brother called. He told me that our father was struck down by a combination heart attack […]

There’s good news and bad news. First, the bad news. As you’ve probably noticed, 2016 has been an absolute garbage year. Our country elected a profoundly unqualified narcissist for President, tensions borne from race, gender, and sexual identity threaten to split us apart, and Florence Henderson, the mom from The Brady Bunch just died. Is it because […]

Okay, guys, confession time. Like all right-thinking people, I’ve read the Harry Potter novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. Unless you’re the constantly allergic to fun New York Times,* who wouldn’t? J.K. Rowling single-handedly created a book series that was not just fun and wondrous, but also perceptive, possessing subversive wit, and a profound understanding of the human condition. There’s […]

These are interesting times for science fiction. You can be excused for thinking that science fiction is just shorthand for an action movie set in space, or with aliens, or time travel. Yeah, we’ve had a lot of that, particularly with Star Trek Beyond and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.* But we’re also living in a bit of a […]

We’re 14 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In and of itself, that is a massive triumph. Most franchises really start to suck hard by the third installment, if you’re lucky. But I’m hard-pressed to think of another film series that has the energy and longevity of Marvel Studios. Luckily, they had a blueprint to […]

In order to explain to you why I disliked Jack Reacher: Never Go Back so much, I must first explain why I loved 2012’s Jack Reacher. The original film is based on Lee Child’s series of hardboiled novels about the adventures of an ex-military policeman.* It was adapted for the screen and directed by the great Christopher McQuarrie, […]

In the end, it’s all about the buy in. Maybe you can accept a grown man running around in an American flag costume smashing people in the face with an indestructible shield. Perhaps you absolutely can’t accept that, yet you’re okay with a Catholic married couple who are also ghost hunters. You might have a positive or […]

Some of them made the crossing to reunite with family. Some wanted a decent job. Some believed in the promise of America, while others wanted to get the hell away from the cartels. But applying for immigration, whether it was because of time or money, simply wasn’t a realistic option. Phone calls and desperate pleas […]