The "launcher" comes from the fact that it was his first novel and (I think) the paperback rights sold for something completely bonkers, like $450,000 (and this was in 1975 or so, recall). Since then there have been many other better points of entry but I still think it's a good read, it's definitely a lot weirder and…

Ha, I really like the phrase "Hollywood age zoning," I can picture fading child stars applying for special permits to remain in high school movies and being turned down unless they pay off the regulatory board.

For Our Consideration: It's Time To Stop Being So Patriotic

Gasp! A fellow Not Another Teen Movie fan? If we needed another reason to hate the BLANK Movies it's that they've sucked that one in by association when it's pretty damn funny.

Ahahaha, nicely done.

"Wait a minute — this pale-haired provocateur isn't 'Julian Assange' at all!" *rips off mask* "UNCLE DAVE?!?!?!"

" transported out of the ’70s and into a new era of Internet-abetted cruelty."

I just tapped the freeze wickett, you all have to stand still for a count of three recitations of Hamster Huey And The Gooey Kablooie!

If you've never read it I would highly recommend his children's book There's A Hair In My Dirt. I'd also recommend giving it to children with a healthy sick sense of humor and/or parents who won't give you a hard time when the kids get to the ending.

HERE COMES A HUGE *REDACTED*

Aw, they missed an opportunity for the same slogan but with the giant Leviathan dude instead of the tiger.

That's a good description of White — if he was a commenter here I'd think he was amusing (like Tarkovsky's Former AD). That he has a job bugs me. And yep, I am guilty of belonging to the Fourth Estate.

The writing improves in terms of consistency (both plot and technique) and probably style, King's reach exceeds his grasp quite a bit in the first book. But that's why I like it, it's poetic, confusing, upsetting, above all weird. What a way to be thrown into that world! Put another way, it's not recognizably a…

Yeah, and I'm not trying to tear you down or the general idea of seeing more diverse and untold stories. I just get annoyed when a movie like this comes out and the conversation gets turned away from what it is and what that means (which are of course debatable topics themselves) into what it is not, which is…

I do agree that hatred of him is blown out of proportion and being shocked by him is obviously what he wants. I dunno, I just see it as unprofessional and dishonest. On the flip side of hate is love and friendship and those would also be detriments to honest criticism — Glenn Kenny was in a Soderbergh movie and…

That's another thing — she gets the drop on Schwarzenegger at the end and it is totally believable, Reed really has to bail his ass out. How often does that happen in a Schwarzenegger movie?

"I can't help but feel that films like this, valuable as they are, make
it way too easy for white audiences to compartmentalize the history of
American racial oppression."

Again, why should I give time to someone whose personal animosity overwhelms his criticism (which it is his job to write and which job connotes some sense of professionalism), especially when such animosity isn't even a direct feud but as you say, transferred down to the person he's criticizing? Obviously personal…

http://blogs.villagevoice.c…

A blog I follow reminded me of Fritz Leiber's Our Lady Of Darkness, which is a short horror novel about San Francisco that has some of the creepiest, hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising scenes I've read. Good stuff.