April 2013
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The Place Beyond The Pines
Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) paces back and forth in his trailer — a tattooed torso with a butterfly knife aflutter in his hands. He performs the nervous, preshow ritual of a stuntman summoning his courage before he gives the knife one last flick and drives it, determinedly, into the door. The scene then transforms into a sustained tracking shot, trailing in the wake of Glanton’s cigarette...
March 2013
2 posts
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Call It Quits
Well, if it weren’t abundantly clear by now that The Strokes are totally ambivalent towards their “saviors of rock” title, take one listen to their fifth and latest album, Comedown Machine—it all but spells it out. And what’s more, it appears they’re collectively throwing in the towel to boot. Between no announced tour dates, a media black out, and a fulfillment of...
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Warning: May Spoil Movie
Look, you’re reading this because you want to know more about Side Effects but, believe me, you really don’t. I wouldn’t even recommend watching the trailer. All the joys to be derived from what is purportedly Steven Soderbergh’s final theatrical release come from going into it completely blind. As Roger Ebert said in his review,
…critics were not admitted...
February 2013
2 posts
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Just Die Already
One of the better skits from Ben Stiller’s self-titled sketch comedy show—criminally cancelled by Fox after only one season and, ironically, the posthumous winner of the 1993 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Variety Series—was the timely parody trailer for Die Hard 12: Die Hungry. At the heart of the skit, littered among a bounty of classic riffs on the (at the time) two Die...
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The Best Films of 2012
What follows are 10 of my personal favorite films from 2012. There was a lot to love this year, far more than can fit on a such a simple list, but my aim here is to show you something new or something you already knew, but with a twist. And, again, these picks aren’t in order of great to greatest, simply chronological; putting such constraints on these works would only serve to be reductive. In...
January 2013
3 posts
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The Best Albums of 2012
Let’s do something different this year. Here’s ten albums from 2012. I love all of them and I present them here, humbly, to hopefully show you something new. But I’m not going to rank them, because, ultimately, what does that prove? And honestly, I couldn’t rank these selections if I wanted; each is a work unto itself, with its own styles and merits. Claiming one is...
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The Best Songs of 2012
Last year’s song selections was the hardest list I’d ever assembled. It was considerably easier in 2012 likely because it took the better part of the year to get into any albums the year had to offer. Meanwhile, stellar songs were plentiful, arriving early and often, making this year’s songs list the easiest to create. What follows, of course, are twenty favorites with a general...
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Let the Oscar Wankfest begin! →
IMDb has the Oscar nominations—which of these films do you not give a shit about?
(Seriously, though, Daniel Day-Lewis is a lock for Best Actor and if not, fuck everything.)
December 2012
4 posts
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Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2012 →
And so the festivities begin! Kicking off the week in typical Pitchfork year-end style is their top 100-51 tracks. Tomorrow will follow with numbers 50-1 with albums taking up the rest of the week.
If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on in the music world over the year, here’s where you get caught up on anything worth knowing.
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Louis C.K.: The Proust Questionnaire →
Louis CK contractually drags himself, kicking and screaming, through an hilarious Vanity Fair questionnaire. Among the highlights:
How would you like to die?
Handcuffing myself to you and jumping into a cauldron of molten bronze.
(via kottke.org)
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"Taylor Kitsch Had A Very Bad Year" →
Zach Baron waxing philosophical in the New York Times on Taylor Kitsch placing bets on all the wrong horses this year:
[Kitsch] looks like a bruiser, his true strengths, as Friday Night Lights taught us, lay in his heart and his empathy. He’s not an action hero. He’s a romantic lead trapped in an action hero’s body.
Consider, though, a different 2012 for Kitsch: Instead of John Carter,...
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Tim Heidecker, 'Rolling Stone' Editor-In-Chief →
Tim Heidecker—yes, that Tim Heidecker—announced on his Tumblr that he is the new Editor-In-Chief of Rolling Stone magazine. Yahoo! News did some digging and alleges its legitimacy.
Is this real life?
November 2012
6 posts
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"The Beatles: For 15 Minutes, Tremendous" →
Jen Carlson at Gothamist unearthed a retrospectively hilarious, negative review ran in the New York Times for The Beatles final masterpiece, Abbey Road. It’s full of ironic zingers. My favorite pull quote:
The badness ranges from mere gentle tedium to cringing embarrassment.
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Unreleased Jimi Hendrix Due March 5th →
Rolling Stone:
People, Hell and Angels follows Hendrix in 1968 and 1969 as he works on material apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and suggests new, experimental directions.
The legendary guitarist was considering these new sounds for First Rays of the New Rising Sun, the planned double-album follow-up to Electric Ladyland. Hendrix toys with horns, keyboards, percussion and a second...
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More Personal Statement, Less Random...
Here’s the thing with Skyfall, the celebratory fiftieth anniversary feature to star Britain’s most iconic secret agent, James Bond: it’s not a James Bond film.
Of course, James Bond is in Skyfall, more seasoned and a tad less reckless when enforcing his license to kill than in Casino Royale & Quantum of Solace, but this isn’t his movie, no matter how nuanced and...
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October 2012
15 posts
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A 'Sinister' Night Out With MoviePass
Towards the beginning of October, I mentioned how MoviePass would change my life. Well, after some eager anticipation, a confusing sign up process, a torturous week staring enviously at my girlfriend’s MoviePass card, a pleasantly surprising price drop, and a friendly, if drawn out, chat with MoviePass’s tech support, I had attained movie-nerd nirvana in the form of a red plastic...
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Hell Week
Halloween is in seven days, ladies and gentlemen. In the spirit of All Hollow’s Eve, Paige and I have crawled, screamed, and suffered our way through the best and worst we could unearth from Netflix, Hulu, and anywhere else. Time to rev your chainsaws and prepare for an onslaught of horror movie goodness.
Shockingly Good
Not the classics, but not to be overlooked. If you haven’t...
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Indiana Jones Discovers His Bid for Tenure is... →
Andy Bryan writing at McSweeney’s:
Criticisms of Dr. Jones ranged from “possessing a perceptible methodological deficiency” to “practicing archaeology with a complete lack of, disregard for, and colossal ignorance of current methodology, theory, and ethics” to “unabashed grave-robbing.” Given such appraisals, perhaps it isn’t surprising to learn that several Central and South American...
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Whatever Happened to Old Joe's Old Joe?
Nick Hurwitch of The Huffington Post takes a crack at unravelling the Gordian Knot that is Rian Johnson’s Looper. Rian Johnson answered a lot of these “plotholes” himself on io9 and blogger X-Soldier did a decent job debunking a fair amount of these too.
I don’t know that I wholly agree with either of them—they’re definitely both worth a read if you, like me,...
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This Is Why 'Jurassic Park 4' Was Scrapped →
Humanosaurs. (via Collider)
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WatchA Good Day to Die Hard teaser trailer
Am I going crazy or does this look pretty good?
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Blasting Through a Gordian Knot
In 2044, time-travel hasn’t been invented yet. By 2074, it’s illegal, not that it matters to certain industrious crime syndicates using it to dispose of bodies. That’s where loopers—the mob’s garbage men—come in. Loopers get paid in silver bars sent on the backs of their bound & shrouded bounties courtesy of their future benefactors. The hits appear from...
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MoviePass: An Unlimited Movie Service →
Devindra Hardawar of /Film, here writing at VentureBeat:
Here’s how it works: For a flat monthly fee (between $24.99 and $39.99, depending on where you live), MoviePass grants you access to one free movie ticket a day. To use the ticket, you simply need to head to a movie theater, check in using the MoviePass app on your iPhone, and then pay for the ticket with your MoviePass payment card. To...
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September 2012
18 posts
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Meeting A Troll →
Leo Traynor:
When I left Twitter numerous people thought it was as a result of an overreaction on my behalf. That my departure was a kneejerk reaction to a couple of ‘trolling’ or ‘flaming’ incidents or that I was attention seeking. The reality of the situation is that my wife and I were targeted for over 3 years.
A gripping, harrowing tale on the dark side of...
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A Rose By Any Other Name →
I received a Twitter reply in response to my post yesterday titled “in defense of Armond White”. Clicking it took me to an emerging blog called Film-Cycle where I found this:
I have a question.
Has cultural commentary and criticism devolved into such a state of herd mentality that the mere suggestion of someone bucking a popular trend or denouncing a fad is sacrilegious? I...
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Battle of the Andersons →
Armond White, cinema troll extraordinaire, contrasts this week’s “dueling” releases from a pair of Andersons: Paul W. S. Anderson & Paul Thomas Anderson, the directors behind Resident Evil: Retribution and The Master respectively.
But not before slamming Martin Scorsese’s stereoscopic cinematographic technique in Hugo:
Compare the unoriginal use of 3D in...
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Crystal Blue Persuasion
When last we saw Walter White (Bryan Cranston), he declared a stunned yet smug victory over his malevolent employer and Machiavellian drug kingpin, Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). Walt’s coup reaffirmed his status as smartest guy in the room and the exploration of Walt’s resulting ego-trip as reigning meth champion (best exemplified in this new season with hubristic lines like...
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'Breaking Bad' Creator Thinking Maybe Next Season... →
The Onion:
“I know our audience has gotten comfortable seeing Walt regularly kill drug dealers, endanger his family, and poison small children, but, personally, I think people would be interested in seeing a slightly more sinister side to the character.” Gilligan’s announcement comes just weeks after fellow AMC showrunner Matthew Weiner announced it was “entirely conceivable that the next...
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Rumored 'The Dark Knight Rises' Director's Cut →
According to “sources”, Nuke the Fridge reports The Dark Knight Rises will get a director’s cut on home video, restoring more than 30 minutes of footage, much of it to do with Bane’s origin. To bolster the claim, they quote DKR costume designer, Lindy Hemming, in an interview she gave to GQ:
The thing that you should have seen during that sequence is [Bane] being...
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Summer 2012: An Enormous Letdown →
Devin Faraci at Badass Digest expresses his profound disappointment with Hollywood’s blockbuster offerings by contrasting them with two wildly successful, independent gems:
Both Moonrise Kingdom and Beasts of the Southern Wild did well this summer, by the way. Neither came anywhere near what The Dark Knight Rises earned, but people came out to support them. They were among the few films...
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The Setup
In honor of Labor Day, I’ve cooked up a special post. There’s a wonderful site for tech enthusiasts and it’s called The Setup. Each interview consists of the same four questions, all pertaining to the interviewee’s setup. A lot of my favorite internet writers have been featured here to talk about their setups (John Gruber, Marco Arment, Dan Benjamin, MG Siegler, Shawn...
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'The Dark Knight Rises' Tops 'The Dark Knight' →
Today, The Dark Knight Rises officially crossed the $1 billion mark in world-wide box office receipts, simultaneously surpassing Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film, 2008’s The Dark Knight, and now sits at #12 on the all time list. It’s almost certain to crack the top ten by the end of its run.
This is all the more impressive as both are among only five films to cross the...
