The Star Wars prequel movies – The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack Of The Clones (2002), and Revenge Of The Sith (2005) – are the most fascinating bad movies that have ever been made. That’s probably not the distinction these films were going for, but there you have it. I’ve been asked, “Why are you so interested… Read more
The paradox of Minority Report’s denouement
Somebody asked an excellent question over on the IMDB forums about the climatic ending of this movie (spoiler alert obviously in effect): At the end, when John and Lamar are confronting (each other) on the balcony, what was the motivation of John giving Lamar the choice to choose to kill him? To either prove it… Read more
What if there hadn’t been video?
Incredibly disturbing story and video: North Charleston officer faces murder charge after video shows him shooting man in back I keep coming back to this: Summey, the city’s mayor, said the cameraman handed over the footage to Scott’s family, who gave it to SLED. City officials reviewed it late Tuesday afternoon. The mayor said that… Read more
Valar Morghulis indeed
The Washington Post posted a great infographic (click to go directly there) ahead of this Sunday’s Game Of Thrones season 5 premiere, detailing every death over the course of the last 4 seasons. And I do mean every death, down to the last lowliest wildling, anonymous soldier, and even a few animals. The where, who… Read more
The Road Warrior (1981) hasn’t aged in the slightest
I first saw this movie when I was 12, in the theaters, and had seen it a few more times over the years, but not in the last 15 years or so. I sat down with my 12-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter to watch this last night, saying, “This is an action classic, you’re going… Read more
Oh Amiga, how I loved thee…
The Commodore Amiga computer turned 25 years old yesterday, the original Amiga 1000 having been released to rave reviews on July 24, 1985. Those were heady times for home computing enthusiasts, when programming was still largely in the hands of individuals or small teams and the wide assimilation of gaming into corporate monoculture (I’m looking… Read more
Moon hoaxers busted
I love critical thinking and skeptical writers, and I love finding an author who gets the message across in creative, accessible ways. Darryl Cunningham takes a unique approach to skepticism – he draws and writes comics. While this may not seem to be the most serious format with which to debunk nonsense, he is devastatingly effective due… Read more
Why the iPad critics are wrong
Ever since Apple’s announcement of their new iPad device, there have been a plethora of critical articles and blog posts about how it’s a device that doesn’t measure up. It doesn’t multitask. It doesn’t let you openly install apps. It doesn’t have a USB port or an SD card slot. It doesn’t even run Flash!… Read more
Horror movie recommendations for Halloween
Halloween is quite simply my favorite holiday of the year (and don’t get me started on whether or not it’s a “real” holiday. It’s real to me, dammit.) One of the reasons for my fondness of Halloween is my love of horror movies. The horror genre has suffered a poor reputation due to the amount… Read more
Dear Frankie (2004) – a beautiful movie
Just watched this movie tonight. What a beautiful, understated movie this is. Hollywood could take many lessons from films like this – not everything has to be spelled out, and not everything has to be melodramatized. I loved how the actors acted like – gasp! – real people, and much of the best communication in the… Read more