Finally getting around to watching Justified. This show is rad. I grew up in east Tennessee not too far from Harlan County and to be honest I still miss it a bit. I love the Appalachian landscape but that part of the country is pretty messed up in a lot of ways.

2-4 Aug. 2019 U.SA.

“Is Tracy Flick the hero or villain?” seems so unrelated to the actual movie that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it.

The movie is built around resentment. Tracy resents the rich kids and how things are handed to them. Tammy resents her brother and his relationship with her ex. Even the janitor resents…

Excellent review, particularly this: “It acknowledges that killing will haunt you, maybe ruin you even, while also wondering aloud if there’s some evil so deep and oppressive and destructive it must be met with violence.” There is a lot of Peckinpah in this movie and that boils it down well. There’s a haunting moment…

This was one of the movies I saw on a day where I went to the local multiplex and saw 6 movies in a row. SLJ getting eaten by the shark was the highlight of all 6 movies. (I’d already seen everything good that was out, so the day’s list was: The 13th Warrior, The Astronaut’s Wife, Dudley Do-Right, Inspector Gadget,…

Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he’s created?

I saw the three first movies, but I honestly don’t remember number two or three. Well, for the most part. I remember three being based in some video game and after seeing it I decided I never wanted to see a 3d movie again.

“Rick, it’s a flamethrower.”

The Blair Witch Project.

It boggles my mind that almost no one from BSG has had a career afterwards (not including Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, who both already had had good careers in the U.S.). I know Grace Park has been cashing those checks on Hawaii Five-O for probably a decade now, but the rest of the core cast, not so much.

I…

I’m watching Last Chance U, which has become kind of a summer tradition for me. Documentaries are not normally my thing, but this one is just fascinating on so many levels. There’s a certain comedic absurdity to how fanatical all of these people are being about community college football, a feeling of fury and horror…

I went to a Michael Bublé concert. He’s not really my cup of tea, but it was an enjoyable show. He knows how to work a crowd, even if that crowd was a minimum of 20 years older than me.

The other child, unfortunately, was born as one of the Deviants. He had purple skin and a pronounced, bumpy chin, and though he had a relatively normal childhood alongside his brother at first, things eventually took a turn and he grew up to be a genocidal maniac with a fondness for wiping out half of all life in…

In light of the recent fire at Kyoto Animation Studios that killed 33 people (RIP to all the victims), I’ve decided to get back into their old anime shows that really got me into anime. I’ve decided to watch The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Hibike Euphonium and Amagi Brilliant Park which remained my personal…

Another week of Cocteau movie nights: Ruy Blas, and 8 x 8 A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements. These were as far removed as possible from each other, the first a big studio movie in which Cocteau delivers 90 minutes of exposition that still aren’t enough for me to follow what is going on, and the other, a bunch of top…

I guess I am not sure how this works with 7 of 9's timeline, but I don’t really care, I love Jeri Ryan & am glad that she was on it.

There’s a central core to Utica that’s still okay but I’ve been to Utica a bunch and it’s pretty bad. My partner grew up in Oakland and even he thinks it’s rough. Not dangerous or anything, just depressed and depressing. His grandmother raised her family there and can’t bear to drive through it anymore. When we pulled…

I’m reading the second book in Steph Cha’s Juniper Song series, with the third book of the trilogy to follow. Liking it so far, but I’m wary of the “Hollywood scandal” direction Beware Beware is taking.

i was making a pretty good dent in FALL, the latest Neal Stephenson, but i hit a wall about 3/4 through and haven’t been back to it for almost two weeks now, partly because i didn’t want to lug it on vacation to the cottage my wife dragged me to over the fourth of july... maybe today is the day i pick it back up again!

Thieves’ Dozen, by Donald Westlake — short stories about his comic crook Dortmunder (plus a revision of the character he wrote when he thought he was going to lose the rights because of Hollywood fuckery, it’s a fascinating glimpse into an alternate universe). Nothing is essential but it’s all fun and professional,…