I wasn’t really a fan of this movie, but it’s worth reviewing simply because, well, I saw it…But I’ll make it brief since everyone really just wants to talk about The Hobbit (which I will, a little later on today)… What Works: This updating of the classic story will probably please fans of the material,…
Category: Mindless Mondays
A Rare Saturday Mom Joke: Chores
Why a Saturday Mom Joke? Because recent events that have dominated the news have been really…well, I think we could all use a laugh… Chores Little Rodney comes down to breakfast. Since they live on a farm, his mother asks if he had done his chores. “Not yet,” said Rodney. His mother tells him no…
Movie Review: Rise of the Guardians
This movie is pretty much exactly what’s wrong with Hollywood. The “plot” (or, more accurately, marketing gimmick) revolves around the “new idea” that a lot of the most famous characters on Earth (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.) are actually action heroes that fight the forces of darkness. It employs the trendy mass-market concept…
Mom Jokes: The Power of A Wife’s Love
A man was in his death bed, counting down his last hours with no hope and nothing left to live for. But then he began to smell the wonderful scent of his wife’s cookies—–his favorite food on Earth—–which seemed to magically lift his spirits. Slowly, he got out of bed and practically crawled down the…
TV Review: Sons of Anarchy’s Fifth Season Finale
Sons of Anarchy is almost the exact opposite of Treme (see review from earlier today), whereas Treme is a show I want to like and know is good for me, but I just never really can get into, Sons of Anarchy is pure junk food. It’s the equivalent of Real Housewives for Men, where we watch…
TV Review: Boardwalk Empire’s Third Season
Boardwalk Empire is a show that I should love, but don’t. It’s a show I want to like more often than I really like. And it’s a show I root for more than I really look forward to. That’s because I know the show has been right on the edge of being a great show for so…
Why Django Unchained Flopping Would Be Good for Quentin Tarantino
“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…
Movie Review: Killing Them Softly
I liked this movie, and it gets a little better the more I think about it. [Disregard the ultra-harsh F cinemascore rating, if people knew what a good movie was, Taken 2 wouldn’t have gotten an A.] While you’re watching it, there may be a certain impatience that sets in as you watch hitmen, thieves,…
Movie Review: The Silver Linings Playbook
I really liked this movie. Will you? That all depends. Depends largely on how much you like the style of sometimes dramatic/sometimes-comedic director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter, Three Kings) who’s fully operating in dramedy mode, criss-crossing between dramatic scenes that are hilarious and comedic scenes that are maybe trying just a…
Mom Jokes: Grandfathers Don’t Know Everything
Hunter was 4 years old and was staying with his grandfather for a few days. He’d been playing outside with the other kids, when he came into the house and asked: “Grandpa, what’s that called when two people sleep in the same bedroom and one is on top of the other?” His Grandpa was a little…
TV Review: Why The Walking Dead’s Third Season was its Best Yet
The Walking Dead has never had a season as good as the (half) season they just finished, with the rest of the third season airing in February. Honestly, the second season (which found them stuck on a farm and really stuck with the same basic dialogue in every episode) was so tedious and stagnant and…
November’s Book of the Month Club Pick is…Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower!
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,…
Movie Review: Lincoln
I loved this movie. This is the type of rousing, sharp, entirely perceptive big-studio drama that Hollywood almost doesn’t make anymore. [It’s telling that a man many credit with “ruining” the adult aesthetic of the 70’s, Steven Spielberg, is now making some of the most mature and sophisticated films out there.] Some may think it’s…