Category: Arts & Entertainment
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All Will Be Revealed… At Once
Apparently the revolutionaries of the last few episodes were armed with low-caliber exposition rounds, Teflon-Flashback coated to penetrate the armor of the Rules of Dramatic Writing, including “Show, Don’t Tell.” But I kid “Battlestar Galactica” only because it annoys me so much. This week’s episode (“No Exit”), was paced and written as well as it…
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This place is AWESOME
Okay, “Lost,” I can see how watching a bunch of French-speaking scientists slowly going mad and shooting each other might not be the gripping, edge-of-your-seat drama that I’d been imagining all this time. Thanks for letting me discover that for myself, though, and showing us only the cool parts. For at least the first 20…
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Good times never seemed so good
For some reason (probably because I was conflating it with Stardust), I didn’t expect Coraline to make a big dent in the box office. I thought it was going to be one of those relatively low-key indie movies where fans go on for years about how ingenious it was and complain that “most Americans” just…
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Redemption
Last week, I complained that it was clear “Battlestar Galactica” had done me wrong, because they put out a very good episode that I couldn’t enjoy because there were still just too many problems with the series as a whole. This week’s episode (“Blood on the Scales”) was even better. It started with a space…
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Fat Man and Little Boy and Jughead
After watching this week’s episode of “Lost” (called “Jughead”), I think I’ve finally figured out the secret of the island: it loves killing unnamed people. If I were a Flight 815 survivor at this point, I’d be going around to everyone who would listen, introducing myself and giving a little bit of my backstory. And…
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A Disquiet Follows My Mid-Season Break
Or, “We Never Said They Had a Good Plan.” So last week was the big return of “Battlestar Galactica” (with “Sometimes a Great Notion”) after months of speculation after a huge cliffhanger and the promise that all our questions would be answered. I didn’t really say anything about it at the time, because I was…
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SPOILER: Caesar dies
This weekend I finished watching the last episodes of the HBO series “Rome.” It’s been a hard road to the end of the series: it was recommended by a friend on here, but it took me a long time to get into it. And they nearly lost me a few times in season 2, because…
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Density Calls
The “Lost” season 5 premiered with a two-parter, “Because You Left,” and “The Lie.” You can tell that they’ve finally mastered the “Lost” formula because they aired two full hours jam-packed with over a dozen characters, eight or nine locations all over the world, multiple flashbacks, a genuinely surprising reveal of a familiar character, multiple…
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On the Air
About two months ago, I did the unthinkable and cancelled my satellite TV service. It was both an attempt to save money as well as a social re-engineering project on myself: I’d gotten so dependent on having live TV that it never even occurred to me I could go without it. It was an essential…
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Rags to Raja
Hang on, we may need a last-minute recount on the best movie of 2008, because I just got back from seeing Slumdog Millionaire. Considering it’s been getting near-universal praise from critics and audiences, I hadn’t heard that much about it. I would’ve passed it by if an internet pal hadn’t recommended I see it in…
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Two Thousand Eight
I realize that year-end “best of” posts only make sense for bloggers who get paid by the post (and just barely even then), but it’s a good way to acknowledge that the year wasn’t all bad, and give a call out out to the stuff that was excellent. Plus, it gives me one more opportunity…
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Literacy 2008: Book 9: More Information Than You Require
Book More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman Synopsis John Hodgman got famous from “The Daily Show” and those Apple ads and also he’s friends with Jonathan Coulton. (Actually: a continuation of his almanac of made-up facts, begun in The Areas of My Expertise). Dismaying Fact Discovered Hodgman is only 24 days older than…