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Intrusive Thoughts

In Their Voices

December 11, 2024

Certain words will always be in certain actors' voices. It's one of the quirks of human memory.

Streaming Shuffle

Cecil B. Demented

December 11, 2024

A cult film about a filmmaking cult.

Movie Gifts Holidays 2024 – The List

December 9, 2024

For all those participating in Movie Gifts this season - find out who you're giving to/getting from this holiday season!

The Wire, Season Three, Episode Six, “Homecoming”: “I'm just a gangsta, I suppose.”

December 9, 2024

He wants his corners.

Celebrating the Living

Barbara Bain

December 8, 2024

The oldest surviving Mission Impossible cast member has a career that goes back to 1958.

Christmas 365 No. 1 Promises A Hilarious Year-Long Disaster

December 8, 2024

The pleasures of anticipating chaos.

Attention Must Be Paid

Eugene Pallette

December 7, 2024

From a slender, dashing stuntman of the silent era to the gruff-voiced Doughy Guy of the '30s and '40s.

Disney Byways

“Hockey Homicide”

December 6, 2024

A platoon of Goofys play hockey in this classic short from 1945.

Is 2024 Best Animated Feature Set in Stone?

December 6, 2024

I decided to see if Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot are truly the frontrunners of the Oscars' Best Animated Feature.

Japandroids sign off with the pretty good Fate & Alcohol

December 5, 2024

Fate & Alcohol was almost certainly not especially fun to make. Bands don’t typically break up after releasing their first album in seven years if everything is wine and roses — but for the most part, it sounds fun.

Live and let D-I-Y with SunDog

December 5, 2024

SunDog, to borrow an over-used sports cliche in service of a pun, have that dog in them. By the time the ball drops on 2024, the psych-tinged bubble grunge trio out of Anchorage, Alaska, will have packed an absurd amount of activity into the year. That includes sandwiching an album release with two tours, serving […]

Year of the Month

Reconstructing Husbands

December 5, 2024

After a preview screening of his newest film Husbands in 1969, John Cassavetes should have been elated: everyone loved the film. But Cassavetes felt that the film was too entertaining in its depiction of the three main characters. So Cassavetes dismantled the entire film in the editing room to create the film he released in 1970. But now we can see it, or at least have a better idea of this first version than we used to. Through my archival research, I located a shooting script of the first third of the film that I argue allows us access to at least part of the 1969 edit of the film.

Film

Intrusive Thoughts

In Their Voices

December 11, 2024

Certain words will always be in certain actors' voices. It's one of the quirks of human memory.

Streaming Shuffle

Cecil B. Demented

December 11, 2024

A cult film about a filmmaking cult.

Attention Must Be Paid

Eugene Pallette

December 7, 2024

From a slender, dashing stuntman of the silent era to the gruff-voiced Doughy Guy of the '30s and '40s.

Year of the Month

Reconstructing Husbands

December 5, 2024

After a preview screening of his newest film Husbands in 1969, John Cassavetes should have been elated: everyone loved the film. But Cassavetes felt that the film was too entertaining in its depiction of the three main characters. So Cassavetes dismantled the entire film in the editing room to create the film he released in 1970. But now we can see it, or at least have a better idea of this first version than we used to. Through my archival research, I located a shooting script of the first third of the film that I argue allows us access to at least part of the 1969 edit of the film.

Streaming Shuffle

The Contestant

December 4, 2024

A Job-esque wager over humanity's ability to entertain.

Hot and Bothered

November 27, 2024

My thoughts on how sex scene discourse seems to bring the worst out of people

Intrusive Thoughts

Starring Meryl Streep as My Mother the Car

November 27, 2024

Thinking back on the unnecessary spate of '90s movie versions of classic TV shows and wondering who let it happen again.

Celebrating the Living

Diane Baker

November 24, 2024

From Anne Frank's sister to Dr. House's mother, Diane Baker has had quite the career!

TV

The Wire, Season Three, Episode Six, “Homecoming”: “I'm just a gangsta, I suppose.”

December 9, 2024

He wants his corners.

Celebrating the Living

Barbara Bain

December 8, 2024

The oldest surviving Mission Impossible cast member has a career that goes back to 1958.

Intrusive Thoughts

Butterfly McQueen and Cynthia Nixon

December 4, 2024

The absolutely wild world of the after school programming beloved by Generation X.

English Teacher, Your Dunning-Kruger Thirties

December 2, 2024

English Teacher is a straightforward sitcom that ends up capturing what it's like to be in your thirties and finding out how much there still is to learn.

Whedonesque Characters

December 2, 2024

How you define a Whedonesque character?

Celebrating the Living

George Wyner

December 1, 2024

One of the great Hey It's That Guys in TV history was finally given a chance to shine by the Coens.

Attention Must Be Paid

Frances Bavier

November 30, 2024

Famous for playing the lovable Aunt Bee; in reality something of a recluse who didn't get along with her coworkers.

Attention Must Be Paid

Andy Griffith

November 23, 2024

Andy Taylor or MAAAAAAATLOOOOOOOCK? You be the judge!

Music

Japandroids sign off with the pretty good Fate & Alcohol

December 5, 2024

Fate & Alcohol was almost certainly not especially fun to make. Bands don’t typically break up after releasing their first album in seven years if everything is wine and roses — but for the most part, it sounds fun.

Live and let D-I-Y with SunDog

December 5, 2024

SunDog, to borrow an over-used sports cliche in service of a pun, have that dog in them. By the time the ball drops on 2024, the psych-tinged bubble grunge trio out of Anchorage, Alaska, will have packed an absurd amount of activity into the year. That includes sandwiching an album release with two tours, serving […]

Radio on

November 28, 2024

Turn it up if you're gonna survive.

All Hell can't stop them now. Los Campesinos! roar back to life with their improbably excellent new album

November 18, 2024

Usually age is  a liability for rock bands, but on Los Campesinos! recently released seventh album, All Hell, “the U.K.’s first and only emo band” unequivocally proves that their well-earned longevity is an asset.  The band describes All Hell as an album on “drinking for fun and drinking for misery // adult acne // adult […]

A show wasn’t a show until we saw you there: Steve Morse, 1948-2024

November 7, 2024

A critic can be a presence that builds a community.

Songs in the key of life

August 22, 2024

Making things up is a foundation of songwriting. But there's a person making it up at the base of it all, pulling from life or reacting to it or rejecting it. 

Music Countdown

My favorite songs of 2023

January 18, 2024

Our author's first annual countdown of his favorite songs of the year

Year of the Month

There is this place inside where all the good things die: Everclear, Sparkle and Fade

November 8, 2023

Everclear's breakthrough album is raw, painful, and brutally honest in a way that few albums are-- and that their own work never reached again

Gaming

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

December 5, 2024

A review of my first playthrough for Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The More Realistic Sex Game

September 2, 2024

Examining how relationships work in The Dragon Age Saga prior to Veilguard.

The many endings of Spec Ops: The Line

October 16, 2023

How the multiple endings of Spec Ops: The Line ask the player to judge their protagonist.

Metal Gear Solid 2: I'll get an action movie with everything on it

March 11, 2019

A deranged, ambitious, overly sincere essay on a deranged, ambitious, overly sincere game.

Game Review: TerraGenesis

August 20, 2018

A short review of a fun mobile game about terraforming planets.

Metal Gear Solid: Scientifically Constructed Ownage

July 9, 2018

Mysteries stack upon mysteries stack upon gameplay to show a vivid, psychedelic view of the world.

Max Payne and the act of creative synthesis

March 4, 2018

How the iconic video games throw together ideas in a sack and see what happens.

Books

Year of the Month

No One Likes Chili Dogs That Much: Gone Girl

June 26, 2024

Amy Dunne knows that it's literally impossible to be a woman, too.

Year of the Month

The Absurd Weight of Existence: Camus in 1942

January 15, 2024

“The Myth of Sisyphus” and Absurdism didn't happen in a vacuum.

Year of the Month

“The Aleph” and the Perils of the Full Picture

January 15, 2024

The limits of knowledge, and of cynicism.

Let There Be Light: The Complicated Labyrinth of The Tombs Of Atuan

September 12, 2023

Le Guin swerved from the expected in her second Earthsea book.

Year of the Month

Anne Rice at Her Most Anne Rice: The Queen of the Damned

October 31, 2022

The third book in Rice's romantic, blood-soaked Vampire Chronicles dramatically upped the stakes and scope.

Intersectional Femivision

Kiki’s Delivery Service: A Look at Purpose, Hardship, and Perseverance

March 13, 2022

When and how we ask kids to grow up

Intersectional Femivision

The Need for A Bechdel Test for Books and Why I think that Gail Carriger’s PARASOL PROTECTORATE Series Would Still Pass

March 19, 2020

A look at Bechdel Tests and Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate Series

Girl Trouble, by Holly Goddard Jones

July 2, 2019

These short stories are thoughtful and wrenching.