Awesome Movie Review: Up in the Air

Awesome Movie Review: Up in the Air

By shawn on January 18, 2010

I’m going to make this brief.  Up in the Air seems to be getting a lot of good press and that bothers me.  It bothers me because I believe the message of the film is fundamentally distasteful.  Now I enjoy a good George Clooney film as much as the next guy (I especially like it [...]

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Poolside Book Review: Sunnyside

Poolside Book Review: Sunnyside

By shawn on December 27, 2009

Sunnyside, Glen David Gold’s second novel, starts off with the type of magic that one might expect to find in his first novel, Carter Beats the Devil.  That is a roundabout and inelegant (did I really just use ‘one’ instead of ‘you’?) way of saying that at the start of the novel, Charlie Chaplin is [...]

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Poolside Book Review: The Terror

By shawn on December 19, 2008

Talking about books is different than talking about movies. When people ask me about movies, I can say, “I watched The Dark Knight” and they’ll usually know what I’m talking about. Or even if I’m talking about an Indie or foreign film, I can say, “I watched an indie or foreign film” and they’ll realize that I’m a pretentious asshole. I can’t do that with books. There’s not really and indie or foreign book scene that has an identifiable presence for most people. So when talking about books, I usually have to give a quick blurb or plot summary to explain what I’m reading. I’ve generally found that the better the blurb, the better the book.

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In Praise of "Watch Instantly"

By shawn on July 3, 2008

Much has been said and written about Netflix’s “Watch Now” or “Watch Instantly” feature.  Most things I’ve read but am too lazy to look up again and link to seem to agree that the selection could use some improvement.  I do know that some dude from Slate wrote: 

I found the offerings impressively bad, as though some schlock curator from an Ivy League cinema studies department was called upon to select the dreckiest soft-porn screwball comedies ever made

I’ve never studied film at an Ivy League school, but I did take film classes at a school just up the road from one, and I take offense at the suggestion that soft-porn screwball comedies are somehow an anathema to the cinema.  A world without Jewel Shepard is a world I don’t want to be a part of.  

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Awesome Movie Review: The Ex

By shawn on September 18, 2007

First, an explanation. I did not want to rent The Ex. I rented it due to circumstances beyond my control.

I rent movies from Blockbuster. I know everyone is canceling their Blockbuster online memberships, but I’m sticking with them until they stop allowing me to exchange movies. And don’t try to sing the praises of Netflix and their online movie watching. That only works for people who aren’t pretentious assholes. It’s not an option for me.

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