It is often hard to compete with the bright lights of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has Adele, Denzel, and DiCaprio. We have the guys from South Park. Los Angeles has Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. We have The String Cheese Incident and icy roads. Los Angeles has Beyonce and her $200 million Malibu estate. We have Ciara and her four-bedroom twelve-bathroom home in Cherry Hills. Los Angeles also has 31 trips to the NBA Finals including 17 NBA Championships. We have none. Correction. We had none. The turning point in Game Four occurred around the two-minute mark when Nikola Jokic drained a one-footed,... Read More

I feel like I’m supposed to care about the Rocky franchise. Look up any list from a reputable source of the best American films, and Sylvester Stallone’s 1976 Oscar-winning film will likely be in there somewhere. It belongs there. John G. Avildsen made a gritty drama featuring both an efficient screenplay and a naturalistic performance* from Stallone. So why don’t the adventures of Rocky and pals make me want to stand up and cheer? Part of it is that I am a bad American and largely don’t care about sports.** Part of it is the vast disparity in the quality of the Rocky franchise. For every... Read More

My kid’s favorite superhero is the Black Panther. Not Spider-Man. Not Captain America. Not Batman. Not even Blue Beetle. He’s a gigantic fan of Marvel’s T’Challa, the ruler of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. But why is he a fan of that guy? Well, let’s hear it from the horse’s….ah….10-year-old’s mouth. “He’s smarter than Iron Man and Batman. He’s sneaky, He fights battles he knows he can’t win for honor and to help. He held the Infinity Gauntlet, for crying out loud! He must be a great hero!” Now, there are a couple of details you need to keep in mind. First,... Read More

I believe in the concept of parallel universes, alternate dimensions that exist alongside our own. Within these universes, things are largely the same, with a few differences here and there. In one of these universes, a young actor named Sylvester Stallone made some slightly different decisions regarding his budding film career. As a result of his wise choices, he was lauded as one of the greatest actors of his generation, and not, say, as a wildly inconsistent performer content to coast on past victories. But we do not live in the best of all possible worlds, as our pal Candide would have us... Read More