Usually, whenever I start the month I have no clue what that month’s pick will be. I run down a list of books I’ve read in the last six months (or am currently reading) and narrow down to one I think is the strongest for that month. None of that is true for Amy Waldman’s…
Category: Entertainment Editorial
Entertainment Editorial: With Summer Over, How Did My Movie Predictions Turn Out?
Roughly four months back, I made a list of the ten movies I was most excited to see, the five I was most on the fence about, and, of course, the five I was least excited to see. Now that summer is officially over, and we’re getting into the best movie season (the Fall and…
Entertainment Editorial: How The Five Seasons of Breaking Bad Mirror the Five Stages of Dying
As every other Breaking Bad fan gets ready for tonight’s final episode (of this year…with the final eight ever playing next summer), I thought I might share an observation I’ve noticed about the five seasons. The main plot of the show: a mild-mannered, brilliant (and perpetually under appreciated) high school chemistry teacher gets cancer and…
Alabama Liberal’s Book of the Month Club Pick is…
“Dare Me” by Megan Abbott. I wasn’t totally in love with any of the books I read this month, but Dare Me is a very strong book that cleverly reinvents the noir genre by setting it in a high school…and unravels some deep truths about what the book calls, the “dangerous boredom of teenage girls.”…
Why Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” is a Great Show (and Why Most Critics Don’t Like It)
Watching HBO’s great new show “The Newsroom,” two feelings come over me. First, a feeling of “I can’t believe a show gets it this honest, this succinct on these complex issues, this…right.” Second, a feeling of “Of course critics largely pan this show. It’s as much about their failures as it is the news media’s.” So, in a tradition I…
A Review of ALL the Bourne Films, and Noticing Exactly How Similar They Are
The moment is here to chat up the “new” Bourne film (which has more than a little bit in common with the old Bourne films) The Bourne Legacy. But in trying to be as thorough as possible in comparing them I re-watched the first Bourne trilogy starring Matt Damon—–not terribly difficult considering TNT or USA…
Why (Alabama-Native) Channing Tatum Is a Mega-Star, Even If No One Will Admit It
This article will deal with the simple reality of why Channing Tatum is the biggest “star” of the year, and the more complex reasons of why he doesn’t get the respect he should. Let me just hit people with the simple facts first. He is now the only American movie star to have three movies (The Vow,…
Entertainment Editorial: July’s Book of the Month Club Pick is…
Multiple Choice! This month was tough for me. Ordinarily, I’ve just finished a book I’m very-excited about (like last month’s pick Gone Girl or March’s The Orphan Master’s Son) or I’ve read a book a while ago that fits some type of theme for the month (February’s Ready Player One being a tribute to geek…
Entertainment Editorial: A Review of Broadway’s Notorious “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”
Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” is not to be confused with the current Spider-Man movie. In fact, the Broadway Spider-Man is actually a less intimate, more flashy spectacle than the current movie, amping up the action and downplaying the emotional aspects of the Spider-Man mythology. The interesting (and entirely unexpected) thing is…it works. It…
Entertainment Editorial: The 15 Best “Breaking Bad” Episodes
Well, it’s that time again. Time to get ready for another season of the best show on television, AMC’s Breaking Bad. In order to prepare both the uninitiated and the die-hard fans alike for the new season, I thought I’d list what I consider to be the 15 best episodes of the series so far….
Entertainment Editorial: Why Steven Soderbergh is The Best Director Alive
Anytime someone is willing to declare anything “the best” rather than “one of the best,” they open themselves up to quite a bit of criticism. You can practically feel people racing to the comments section to tell you you’re full of shit (if people on this site used the comments section), but who really wants…
Entertainment Editorial: June’s Book of the Month Club Pick is…Gone Girl!
click on the book image to pick-up a copy [Buy this book from the link above] Ordinarily, for my book of the month club pick, I like to pick a lesser-known book that is deserving of your awareness but—-for whatever reason—-just never caught on in the way it should have. However, June’s Book of…
Entertainment Editorial: How’d I Do On Predicting Last Fall’s Shows? Pretty Good Actually
So, the “new” Fall season is long over and before the new one begins, I thought I’d revisit a betting pool list of what shows from the 2011-2012 season would make, and which would be renewed. As you’ll see, I didn’t score perfectly, but I did better than you might think. What I wrote then…