Don't look for plot points in Black Holes! Christopher Nolan has made some excellent commercially successful films like Inception, The Dark Knight, and Mememto. When word got out that he was working on a serious science fiction film expectations got out of hand. Those of us old enough to remember the first screenings of 2001 … Continue reading Incoherent Interstellar
Category: Movies
Review: Finding Vivian Maier
I suffer from SLAM (Spouse that Likes Art-house Movies). I’m sure you’re familiar with this common affliction. It strikes when you want to see Spider-Man 2 but, because you dearly love your spouse, you settle on some “uplifting work of art” that can only be seen in a cramped, look around the pretentious fathead ahead … Continue reading Review: Finding Vivian Maier
What’s the opposite of Transcendence?
Serious science fiction is a demanding cinematic genre; that’s why you see so little of it! Most of what passes for science fiction is out-and-out comic fantasy. In the last year only three marginally serious science fiction films made it to wide release: Catching Fire, Divergent and Transcendence. Sadly, they’re all pretty awful and Transcendence … Continue reading What’s the opposite of Transcendence?
Oz the Gratuitous and Purile
This is not the Oz you're looking for! The original Wizard of Oz, the one we have all seen many times, is on a very short list of nearly perfect movies. Everything about the 1939 film is superb in excess. It's as fun to watch today as it was over seventy years ago and you … Continue reading Oz the Gratuitous and Purile
King Hobbit Kong
The pre-Hobbit hum was not harmonious. It started with the interminable legal battle over who would direct the Hobbit and how to split any spoils. After Peter Jackson's cinematic Lord of the Rings triumph people assumed he would be The Hobbit guy but an envious and embittered clique of Tolkien's heirs felt the weren't getting … Continue reading King Hobbit Kong
Ooh Promethean Tentacles
Hey let's wander around in the dark and feed vagina snakes. Prometheus breaks the first rule of movies: don’t make your audience think! Any movie that violates this taboo gets exactly what it deserves and Prometheus is begging for it. Let’s get the good stuff out-of-the-way. Prometheus looks great. It throws up one fabulous tableau … Continue reading Ooh Promethean Tentacles
Evil Queens are getting Hotter
There’s not a lot of good news out there. Our currencies are being sodomized by economic imbeciles. High unemployment has demoralized the masses and forced lobotomized bureaucrats to get off their entitled asses and redefine it. The suck---oops stock---market has returned SFO for a decade. CO2 levels are rising. The seas are not subsiding; they … Continue reading Evil Queens are getting Hotter
The Hunger Games: a Libertarian Dead Teenager Movie.
I’ve always enjoyed watching teenagers die. Even when I was a teenager, back in the early Pleistocene, I couldn’t get enough adolescent annihilation. Now that I am a certified, some would say certifiable, drooling old fart boomer I enjoy it even more. Youthful folly: it’s riveting entertainment for the elderly. Given my macabre inclinations I … Continue reading The Hunger Games: a Libertarian Dead Teenager Movie.
New Conan not as Philosophical as Old Conan
Bad news philosophers, our preeminent social critic, our font of wisdom, our modern Socrates has succumbed to the malignant Hollywood poisons of reality TV, celebrity whoring, financial ennui and hopeless incompetent governance. Given the forces arrayed against our philosopher king only Vegas bookies on crack would favor his chances. I knew all this when I sat down to view … Continue reading New Conan not as Philosophical as Old Conan
Cowboys and Aliens and Obama
I give this better odds than "quantitative easing!" Cowboys and Aliens had me at the title! Throwing Indiana Jones, James Bond and House's 13, (Olivia Wilde - the thinking man's smoking hot babe), into the mix merely turned a ridiculous premise into a cosmically absurd proposition. How could I resist? There's no point issuing spoiler … Continue reading Cowboys and Aliens and Obama
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 