Some paltry defenses from a lifelong fan:

I appreciate the defense. If a key actor didn’t get sick and 2 others didn’t get fired from BE I think the show would have been much better. But Van Alden’s character arc was still squandered. His time in the wilderness between government agent and Capone crony took forever.

Yes. Watched it last week.

Hoping this will inspire a show or movie in which Pierre Delecto joins forces with Carlos Danger to fight evil publicist John Barron.

I don’t know if I agree with that. Sociopolitical subtext was a key component of many films made by “New Hollywood” directors like Friedkin in the late ‘60s-early ‘70s. It’s what he and others like Coppola, Penn, Bogdonavich, etc. took from European directors like Godard, Antonioni and Clouzot (Friedkin’s fave). And…

Pep pills.

Sure it’s Kinja?

I always thought The Exorcist was a reaction against the drug culture that emerged in the ‘60s (I don’t even know who my kid is these days) if not the counterculture era as a whole. So feminism fits in the larger context. But I still think the movie is closer in spirit to Go Ask Alice or the Insight episode in which a…

First full Halloween-movie weekend of the season:

If you combine Godfathers I and II, I would argue Fredo’s arc is as tragic as Michael’s. The scene with Fredo giving fishing advice to Michael’s son before (unwittingly) boating off to his death is heartbreaking. He regains his humanity just as Michael completes his descent into evil. I don’t think any of that is in…

I agree completely. “A Clockwork Orange” has dropped a few notches on my ranking of Kubrick films over the years, but if anything I think Kubrick was trying too hard to avoid sides in the debate over rehabilitation vs. incarceration. He tried to challenge everyone and ended up pleasing no one.

U2 - Faithful listener for 20 years from Boy through All You Can Leave Behind. And then I just lost interest. The songs had become more competent than inspired, but that wasn’t the only reason. I just couldn’t relate to the band members anymore. They seemed more like CEOs in a billionaires club than peers. Around the…

Renner is a good actor who needs a better agent/manager/entourage/support system to help him act in more “American Hustle”- and “Hurt Locker”-level films. When his steadiest gig in the age of streaming is to make Jeep commercials that out-silly Matthew McConaughey’s Lincoln ads, then staff shakeups are in order.

I found out about the Queen Latifah remake after posting. Hope it was worth watching. 

Thanks to the Criterion Channel and TCM, I was able to watch big names in lesser known films:

Completely understand. I usually average one viewing every 18 months. But even when Peter Fonda died last week the choices for my “in tribute” viewing were The Wild Angels, The Trip and The Limey.

“unlike, say, Easy Rider, much of which is practically unwatchable today.” On a literal level no film photographed by Laszlo Kovacs is unwatchable. But as one who has watched Easy Rider countless times, I’ll agree it’s far from a great movie. The commune sequence is underwritten and undone by uneven acting and an…

Only if we learn that "Buddy" 's real name is Henry, and the movie ends with him burying the main characters in a shallow grave 

The rest of the cast is pretty cool, too: Warren Oates, RG Armstrong, Loretta Swift..

Last words: "We blew it." RIP.