Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see Dunkirk yet, but I have been thinking a lot about modern scores and the fact that they seem so mediocre compared to when I was growing up. There just doesn't seem to be a composer out there who's on the level of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Basil Poledouris, or even James…

Hey! This show is actually pretty good when it focuses on a couple of narrative threads instead of jumping through snippets of half a dozen story lines.

For whatever reason, I watched Exodus: Gods and Kings, the Ridley Scott Moses movie from a few years back. It's really as bad as everyone says it is. The entire film is a joyless slog to get through that dutifully trudges through the expected plot points. As reported, the white washing is pretty bad. It's just…

Jay Carney is the only one I remember, but that's because he was apparently a major Guided by Voices fan.

Sorry. I'm not trying to be a killjoy. As a straight action film, there's plenty to like in the film.

Just make sure the yacht is okay with it first.

This is one of those "I'm sorry you were offended" non-apologies.

If you're going to depict someone else's culture, then you have to at least do your homework. The divide between rural and urban Mayans was apparently not really a thing. The Mayan empire had pretty extensive trade networks, so the idyllic farmers would have been aware of the big city surrounding the pyramid and would…

I see where you're coming from, and I agree with you to an extent. I don't really relate to the wish-fulfillment aspect of Bond, which is actually kind of sad in its extreme form. And most Bond movies are pretty bloated (although I would argue that's not the case with Casino Royale despite its hefty running time).…

As an action movie, Apocalypto is fantastic. That chase through the jungle is a thing of beauty. I also like how Gibson represents the Mayans as something other than stoic natives. But as actually historians have pointed out, he's completely ignorant of Mayan culture and society. He also represents the arriving…

Well, it has an 80 on Metacritic, which is lower than the previous albums, but still pretty good generally. But I think there was positive reaction to the fact that the band was branching out. I can see why people might be disappointed with a less ambitious, uneven album four years later. But I still think Everything…

For one summer in college, I worked as a server at Bob Evans. It was the same summer during which I nearly drank myself to death. Coincidence? No. No, these two events were not coincidental.

With Tarantino, you kind of know you're in for the long haul, and whether or not you, as a viewer, is cool with that.

I disagree with the ban simply because language doesn't work in the way the producers seem to think it does. Besides, myths and legends live long after the religions surrounding them have died off. But I do think there's an atheist perspective in a lot of early Trek.

Ah, I see that decadent Western capitalism has finally eaten away at China's way of life.

That sounds like a lot of work, though.

Let me suggest to Arcade Fire that for their next album they have Regine Chassagne sing lead on every track.

After a listen, I think this is going to be Arcade Fire's King of Limbs, an album that's damned because the previous album created such massive expectations, but by the standard of most bands is actually pretty good. And just like there was no real excuse for a song like "Feral" on such a short album, Arcade Fire…

"What makes this choice for Discovery doubly strange is that the atheism of the Federation didn’t really become a focal point until Roddenberry returned to work on the first season of The Next Generation."

It's weird. A ton of reviewers were ready to declare Skyfall the best of the Daniel Craig Bond movies, but I still don't think it's anywhere near as good as Casino Royale (although I still enjoy it). I think that Sam Mendes's various Oscar nominations probably tipped the scales for him in the mind of the average…