Category: Arts & Entertainment
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Not without my daught… well, okay then.
I’m always hearing people (sometimes it’s me) complaining about a TV or comic series, saying, “They’re making it up as they go along!” Most of the time, I don’t see the big deal about that — they don’t have everything planned out? Cool! It means they’re “nimble,” right? But sometimes it gets awkward. This week’s…
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Marshall, Forgetting Sarah
I’d been looking forward to seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, since I’m a fan of “How I Met Your Mother,” and Knocked Up was one of my favorite movies of last year. I wasn’t disappointed; the movie’s hilarious, and I’d recommend it to just about anybody. Anybody who’s not in my immediate family, at least, since…
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Chumpatized
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters got a ton of attention from videogame sites around its release last year, as well as from the critics. It’s all deserved; it’s just a great movie. Of course, to appreciate it to the fullest, you have to have spent a good bit of the 80s in…
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Literacy 2008: Book 6: The Screwtape Letters
Book The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Synopsis A collection of letters sent from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, advising the younger demon on the best ways to tempt a human soul away from Christianity to become food for Hell. Pros Brilliant concept, with a ton of potential for satire. Has one moment…
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Frakky Friday
The fourth season of “Battlestar Galactica” starts this Friday, and I couldn’t be more excited even if I were the guy from Anthrax. The SciFi.com home page is currently overtaken by a bunch of video clips intended to drum up anticipation and make you buy a Walkman phone. The “Phenomenon” clip has a bunch of…
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Her & He
I feel like I’m late to the party with this one, but: She & Him: Volume One is just a great, fun record. (Evidence that I’m late to the party: I’m still calling them “records.”) Like just about everybody else who saw the movie, I’ve had a crush on Zooey Deschanel since she sang “Baby…
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The Island Gives, the Island Takes Away
This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Meet Kevin Johnson.” It ended on a soap opera-like cliffhanger, with Sayid making a dramatic announcement and the camera lingering on other characters giving meaningful looks at each other. And then another cliffhanger with gunplay. Which won’t be resolved until late April. But “Battlestar Galactica” starts back up…
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Was she a great, big, pregnant person?
This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Ji Yeon,” and it was about Sun & Jin, which means it’s another chance to get your weep on. (Warning: Every post on here about “Lost” contains spoilers). It was pretty clear early on that they were doing a Jame Gumb-in-Silence of the Lambs style reveal, in which…
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Literacy 2008: Book 5: Mere Christianity
Book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Synopsis Originally presented as a series of lectures on BBC Radio during World War II, this book is Lewis’s attempt to describe and defend the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, regardless of any particular church or denomination. It’s presented from the perspective of a former atheist who converted to Christianity,…
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Arch Fiend
A month or so before The Darjeeling Limited was released, they made the Hotel Chevalier short film available on iTunes. Watching that sucked away any desire I’d had to see the full movie. I just kept thinking: This! This is exactly what people hate about Wes Anderson movies! It’s so overcrowded with affectations and artificially…
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Knowing Goodwin
Thursday’s episode of “Lost” was called “The Other Woman,” and the double entendre in the title is the most interesting thing about this episode. (Assume spoilers in all these “Lost” posts.) Not that it was bad, just completely straightforward. The whole question of whether the freighter gang are bad guys was supposed to climax in…
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Yojimboring
Even though I’ve gone on record as being unimpressed with the French New Wave, I still feel totally justified in my rental of Le Samourai. Movies with the word “Samurai” title have rarely let me down. And listen to the Netflix description (with most intriguing words highlighted by me): A little bit gangster film, a…