Category: Arts & Entertainment
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Literacy 2008: Book 1: The Road
Book The Road by Cormac McCarthy Selling Points Oprah liked it! (And it won a Pulitzer Prize, too.) But look! Oprah! Disclaimer I tried to be open-minded and objective while I was reading this book, but I was definitely prejudiced against it from the start, because of all the hype and because of how much…
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Suspenders of the Lost Disbelief
Last night I went to see Cloverfield again. Surprisingly, it’s still as good the second time, and I highly recommend seeing it in Digital Projection if possible, because the clear picture and better sound system make it awesome. (Incidentally, if you’re interested in all the backstory and alternate-reality game stuff surrounding Cloverfield, there’s a wiki…
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Candid Gamera
I hope nobody else has used that title to talk about Cloverfield, because I’m inordinately proud of it. This movie is definitely one that benefits from knowing as little as possible about it going in, so if you’re interested in it, I recommend seeing it soon and avoiding trailers and reviews. I’ll just say that…
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Literacy 2008: Exhibition Round 1: Fox Bunny Funny
I’m not including comic books in my meager 26-book challenge for the year — not because they’re not art or they’re not as worthy, but simply because I already read 26 comic books a year. But I still like spouting off my opinions about things, so they’ll go into the exhibition rounds. Book Fox Bunny…
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Click in the middle of the Rocking Chair. You’ll thank me later.
At the end of last month, ABC launched a new viral marketing campaign for the upcoming season of “Lost.” It’s an ad for the series’ fictional airline, with a press release announcing that Oceanic would start flying again after the Flight 815 disaster, and a promo website called FlyOceanicAir.com. And oh no did you see…
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Literacy 2008: Preliminaries: Lost Horizon
(I read this book over the Christmas break, so it doesn’t count towards the 26 books I’ve resolved to read in 2008. But I have a corollary resolution to post something on this blog every day this year, no matter how short or irrelevant, so I’m cheating and rolling back the date.) (I’m also cheating…
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Old News, Everyone!
My favorite thing on the internet of the moment is this old-school video for “Psyche Rock” by Pierre Henry, the inspiration for the theme song from “Futurama.” Transistors as bombs and spermatozoa: awesome.
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Unliterate no more
Since I failed miserably at every single resolution I made last year, I’m going to take it simpler in 2008, and only choose one. Someone on a message board announced he’s challenging himself to read a book a week this year; I read too slowly and am too easily distracted for that, so I’m aiming…
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For want of double-paned windows, the kingdom was lost
I saw Beowulf in IMAX 3D at the Metreon this afternoon. Anybody who has interest in this movie but hasn’t seen it yet for whatever reason, I’d say that 3D, whether it’s the IMAX version or not, is really the way to go. It delivers pretty well on the spectacle, and that kind of thing…
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Say what you will about populism filmed with stylistic excess; at least that’s an ethos.
No Country for Old Men is about as close to perfect as you’re ever going to see in a movie. Not a single shot is unnecessary. The pacing is perfect; both for the movie overall, and for individual scenes that feel as if they were meticulously orchestrated down to a fraction of a second. Almost…
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All of this I’ve seen before, and I will watch it all again.
I got back from Thanksgiving to find the “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” movie waiting for me. On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d rate it radical. (For comparison, the episode where they get off of New Caprica rates a holy crap that was wicked awesome, and the one where Starbuck gets kidnapped on a farm…
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In the event no actual movies are available, the Internet may be used as a substitute.
They’ve been warning us for years that the onslaught of digital distribution, torrents, iTunes, rental-by-mail services, and the new entertainment-in-pill-form (not available in some markets) was going to change everything. What they failed to warn us about were all the tragic implications of the entertainment glut. Case in point: there are currently movies by Wes…