Why do all liberal movements experience such mission creep? What is it about the heart of liberals—always well-meaning in the beginning, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions—that keeps drifting to America’s most puritanical instincts? Why can “Occupy Wall Street,” “Black Lives Matter,” Sandernistas, the #MeToo Mafia, and other solid movements not…
With Lewinsky, #MeToo Movement Drifts Further Into Infantilization
I’m not sure there’s a woman alive I feel less sorry for than Monica Lewinsky. And before you start in that I’m slut-shaming her, keep in mind that I fully respected her decision to sleep with the President…until she didn’t, retroactively slut-shaming herself after listening to the rightwing’s and some women’s insistence for two decades that she…
Movie Review: Annihilation
Is there a more deceptively shallow writer/director working today than Alex Garland? After receiving a lot of acclaim for the scripts of “28 Days Later,” “Sunshine,” “Never Let Me Go,” and “Dredd” (all of them over-praised sci-fi that attached larger significance to themselves than they deserved), he royally gamed critics with “Ex Machina.” That was a…
Movie Review: A Lover of the Book “Every Day” Reviews the Movie
I doubt people unfamiliar with the novel have even heard of this movie. It was dumped in theaters with few trailers, TV spots, or billboards (it supposedly used “targeted marketing” and I guess I’m not the target) and that may be kind-of a problem for a movie with no-name stars, a low-key energy and sense…
Movie Review: “Irreplaceable You” Once Again Sets Interracial Couples in Movies Back
At this point, I almost feel like Hollywood is in a hilariously-lopsided battle against me. How else to explain the relentless drubbing of black/white couples in TV and Film? At a time when “Get Out” is receiving a ridiculous amount of over-praise and Oscar buzz, you might scoff at me putting a movie like Irreplaceable You in…
The 10 Movies I’m Most (and Least) Looking Forward to in 2018
Sure, there will be lots of movies coming out in the last few months of the year that aren’t even on a release calendar right now. So I apologize if this list is heavily-weighted for movies in the first half of 2018, but with that in mind this will be a pretty good starting place…
Review: “Black Panther” is Marvel’s Best Since the 1st “Iron Man”
Note: That headline may be a bit less euphoric than it first sounds since long-time readers may remember that I actually dislike most Marvel films, finding them machine-made and largely flavorless. The “Doctor Strange,” “Ant-Man,” “Thor,” and “Avengers” franchises do nothing for me, and even if I enjoyed “Captain America,” “Iron Man,” and “Guardians of the…
Movie Review: What Other Critics Are Missing About “15:17 to Paris”
You might be surprised to see “15:17 to Paris” get such scathing reviews (a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes? really? when any Marvel bullshit-fest can easily top 90%), and I couldn’t help but wonder if this exact same film—less a terrorism docuthriller than a red state cinema verite piece—were made about a culture literally anywhere else than Christian…
TV Reviews: “Homeland,” “Here and Now,” and “Another Period”
Three shows that really have nothing in common except they premiered new seasons around the same time… Homeland, Season 7…It’s a cruel irony that the better “Homeland” gets, the less other critics pay attention to it. For me, the series has only gotten better with age, starting with the amazing, Afghanistan-set season 4 that fully…
Tax Cuts Kill Jobs
AL explains how tax cuts kill jobs by 1. cutting government jobs to pay for them 2. giving the government less money to create new jobs (like construction for roads or hiring more teachers), 3. jobs are created by demand for things, which tax cuts don’t create, 4. and it gives already-thriving businesses an unfair…
Israel is the Next America
I break down how Israel’s founding is eerily similar to the United States, and how their high-tech economy (including exporting water) could lead to a major expansionIIr
Review: Is “Fifty Shades Freed” the Female “Fast and Furious?”
Yes, I know, there are lots of women who like “Fast and Furious” movies—and notably less men that like “Fifty Shades” movies, as evidenced by how “Furious” movies are rubber-stamped by critics and “Fifty” movies are ridiculed. But when you really get into the heart of the “Fast” audience, there’s a certain type of gear…
Ranking and Grading ALL 8 “Harry Potter” Films
HBOGo did something pretty clever in the last month, by putting all eight “Harry Potter” films in one place for the first time, it generated an awful lot of interest in a movie series that concluded nearly a decade ago. Beat that, Marvel!–with your too many Superheroes crammed in one place like a merchandising machine. Anyway, it’s…