I'm optimistic
I'm optimistic that this could become sort of a modern day "Topsy Turvy," one of the films that gets the"putting on a show" genre more right than any I'd seen. Really, go back and watch it again.

Hope they'll be regular TV Club coverage
This is one of the better pilots I've seen. I'm really impressed with how funny it is throughout, which is rare for a pilot episode. It was also interesting in how it dealt with pop culture, never breaking the reality of the show with cutaways (not trying to be Spaced) and just…

They jumped the shark between Shatner and Flavor Flav
Instead of getting more high concept with their roasts, I wish that Comedy Central would go back to basics, as you said, to a group of celebrities and comedians who clearly hang out off camera ripping on each other. As Gene Siskel used to say, it'd be more…

They jumped the shark between Shatner and Flavor Flav
Instead of getting more high concept with their roasts, I wish that Comedy Central would go back to basics, as you said, to a group of celebrities and comedians who clearly hang out off camera ripping on each other. As Gene Siskel used to say, it'd be more…

I just saw GI Joe last night, and it is totally Team America for reals, with tons of cliches and lots of stupid moments, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Not every work of art has to be artful, and there's something comforting about the stupid cliches riddled throughout entertainments like this. I mean, Transformers…

I gotta defend Elephant for a minute. I get why you see Elephant as an aesthetic reaction to a tragedy, but I don't think that's really giving Van Sant enough credit. He was trying to do something similar to In Cold Blood, the film's spiritual relative. They're both films that argued, in their own ways, that as awful…

Oddly enough
The recently built coffee house at my university is called "Cafe Diem." No joke. I'd like to say it's an elaborate marketing ploy by Syfy, but the schools motto is "Carpe Diem" so I don't think that's possible. Although it could be early viral marketing for Dead Poets Society 2.

Say Wadda Tay, and you're OK!
Maybe it's because I was a teenager when I saw this, at that age where lots of weird comic shit was opening my eyes, but everything about this movie makes me laugh, including Chris Rock. I mean, Rock yelling, "Pootie don't need no words! Pootie don't need no music!" (followed by a white…

Double Feature
I think a great companion piece to this film is Darren Aronofsky's Pi, another movie about what happens when you spend too much time alone in your apartment. Both movies have a real feeling of claustrophobia, of the world (in Repulsion's case, the shallow gilded cage, and in Pi's case, the organic,…

That's hilarious. I was reading that list the other day, thinking about how Liefeld made me hate being a superhero comics fan in the nineties, and how he's a tangible pure reason that anyone might consider comics to be misogynistic in any way. Looking at a Liefeld woman's stomach hold up her chest is like watching a…

Yeah, I thought he was gonna quit "the biz" if Kanye outsold him. Which he did. He also outperformed him, outhiphopped him, out everythinged him. Jay-Z will crush him like a bug. Or die trying. But probably just crush him.

Yeah, that's some really smart marketing, adding the Clockwork Orange music. And the lettering is reminiscent of the trailer to Dr. Strangelove, so the subtle connection the guys who cut the trailer are trying to make to Kubrick is really apparent. I liked it a lot. Can't wait to see it when it comes to NY.

If I had to pick a food metaphor (not quite sports metaphors), I'd say it's a rice cake. It goes down easy, I can do twenty different things will eating it, and I've completely forgotten about it till reading this write-up. I only start hating it when I think about it. Sort of like Cloverfield. I loved it till I…

Great movie. Pootie Tang great? I don't know. But definitely great.
So what you're saying is Darkman is basically a successful version of Mr. Furious, only way funnier and with disguises!

For Future Generations
Maybe it's time this boorish film stop being shown in every other year of English classes, replaced with the source material. Or maybe that was just my experience.

Thanks for the notes. It's an early draft, but I was thinking a bi-racial inter-religion lesbian marraige, to hit on every hot button possible. Thanks again.

In Case Nick Cassevettes is reading this,
I've got an idea for your next film.

I'd feel sympathy for this guy
if he weren't such a damned misogynist. Anyone else?

Playing in NY tonight and Monday
I really can't wait to see this, and anyone in NY, fyi, there's a showing at the BAM Rose movie theater with a Q&A with Robert Seigel.

I'm in NJ, and you're right.
This was a lame year for Broadway. I mean, Shrek: The Musical getting nominated for a Tony is basically because there weren't enough shows to get Tony nominations. It's a shame because Broadway had experienced a pretty cool resurgence over the past seven or eight years, but as soon as the…