I hate that otherwise smart people believe that Swartz's suicide was the direct result of the government's case against Swartz. At best, it ignores the realities of law like the fact of the whole facing 13 counts and 50 years is bullcrap. The prosecution brings up as many counts as it can before the trial to serve as…

Aw, this is sad. RIP. 'It Takes Two' is the perfect old-school single.

To be fair, or at least particular, this isn't about pederasty but sexual assault. The plaintiff was 17 which is both post-adolescent and of legal age in Hawaii (where this allegedly took place)

I bought this a few years back for a couple bucks because Amazon MP3 had it on sale I have a fondness for 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' and I was staggered by what a great pop album it was. I don't think there was a bad song from top to bottom.

I liked Farewell My Concubine quite a bit more than Dowd does (I certainly don't find its filmmaking "unremarkable") but I just want to go on a brief rant about the quality and availability of the Fifth Wave of Chinese films. These are important films that packed the art houses and world cinemas of the 80's and 90's…

This is definitely up there with Matmos' butchering of "I Want Candy". Ugh.

Joy Ride was a decent film. Besides, it was John Dahl's last good film. Anybody remember when he almost became a thing?

I dunno. I liked it. They threw a lot of shit at the wall and some of it stuck. There were some decent jokes and I was tickled by Homer's vision of Baby Jesus getting a degree in hospitality and starting a small business.

I didn't like that movie. I was expecting so much more from Mary Harron after American Psycho. I agree Gretchen Moll gave her best performance ever but Bettie, as presented, was a personality-free bore. She was a very nice but naive and often vapid woman who made many poor life choices (though taking her clothes off…

The Banshee in Darby O'Gill and the Little People fucked up little AlwaysBeenTim something fierce. It freaked me out for weeks. Walking out of the theatre, I was scared to look at the poster.

I loved the Machete trailer in Grindhouse, I was lukewarm about the first movie and I'm not really looking forward to this.

Gotta say, a while back, while backpacking through SE Asia, I was traveling with an Australian girl and we did some occasional good-humored mocking of each others countries. She wasn't overly sensitive or jingoistic, I can assure you, but she did not like this episode. I brought it up with a couple of other Aussies…

Here's my problems with the paranormal investigators:

I would argue that the first one is worth checking. Horror is always subjective so it might do nothing for you but I think they do a good job of setting mood and atmosphere and then constructing really solid scares. Also, I found my self enjoying not only enjoying the scares and the tension but admiring how clever and…

I loved Insidious when it came out. I was shocked by how good it was and I thought the Conjuring was great. This, though, was a real disappointment.C+ is too generous.

I didn't say he was making a fortune, I said that he was selling the magazine for a fortune as in he was charging a fortune for each issue and multiple indie cartoonists involved with Raw at the time complained about not getting paid for their work. Some like Dan Clowes even called him out.

I can't attest to Spiegelman's business practices, but the notion that
anything connected with RAW was worth "a fortune" is just silly.  I
think they were lucky to pay the printing costs.

I assume you mean MetaMaus.

I love Maus but I hear Spiegelman, in real life, is a cock. Particularly during the Raw days, he screwed a lot of people out of money. Basically, he was selling Raw for a fortune and then wouldn't pay the contributors. Dan Clowes actually lampooned him in one of his Dan Pussey stories.

Personally, it has been a treat.