Category: Entertainment Editorial

Note: Nearly all of these books have been featured on “Best Books of the Year” lists, and yet, I found all of them to be lacking in some fundamental way. The subtitle of this article could almost be “When Everyone Else Loves a Book that You Merely Like” but that wouldn’t fit on the Twitter…

Sadly, Christmas is now behind us, and it’s time to focus on the New Year. And what better way to do it than to think about managing your time. And what better way to think about managing your time than to start picking off good-for-nothing TV shows that might have started off good but have…

“Quentin Tarantino is a genius, a singular artist and visionary that is unrivaled in movies today. He can do no wrong.”–The consensus. And it’s true for the most part, or, at least, it was true when Pulp Fiction came out. The problem with all the talk of Tarantino’s genius is that it’s become clear he…

Am I a day late and a dollar short on picking out November’s Book of the Month Club? Absolutely, and I apologize profusely for that. Even worse, I’m posting it on a Saturday, where many of the people that would really want to see it probably won’t, but I thought the sooner the better… Anyway,…

Okay, so this October book of the month club pick is royally messed up by Hurricane Sandy. See, the last Monday of the month (my preferred time to list the book of the month) was thwarted by not having a working internet connection. My apologies to readers but maybe I can claim it as an “Act of…

On the eve of the election (but it’s still a monday, where I’m supposed to talk about entertainment), it might be a great time to unwind with a movie about a political campaign. So the question persists: what’s the best one? That’s a tough question, since the majority of political movies are about campaigns. [There’s…

I’m about two weeks late with this one as some of the new Fall shows (roughly a third) have already premiered. Oh well, but it does mean I probably won’t go as in-depth as I might have… NBC…Poor NBC, it’s been dead last for years and I don’t see that changing much this year. The…

Unlike The Oscars, which have almost no surprises by the time the other five dozen movie awards shows have already come on, The Emmy awards are extremely hard to predict. That’s because the only other televised awards shows that deal with TV (The Golden Globes, and The SAG Awards) also deal with movies, and, therefore, pretty…

It’s great to pretend that critics go into movies entirely neutral about them, but, honestly, they don’t. There are just always going to be some movies you look more forward to than others. It was true when I did a similar list in the summer, and especially true in the Fall…where Hollywood rolls out their…

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…

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…

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…

“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.”…