thecriticalcondition — Until yesterday, I hadn’t heard of Country Strong, a film that’s being released on December 22. It’s written and directed by Shana Feste, produced by Tobey Maguire (!), and stars Gwyneth Paltrow as a washed-up country singer who’s trying to reboot her career. I didn’t hear about this movie because I...
parabasis.typepad — When 99 called dibs on season finales in the spring, I did a tiny bit of silent brooding--I'm obsessed with questions of closure, you see, and especially with how the failures and successes of finales so often determine how we look back on a series years down...
parabasis.typepad — ...putting out a fire with your heart. Except the fire IS your heart, too.Have I mentioned my deep, abiding love for Matt Freeman? Because it is real. And true.
matthewfreeman.blogspot — On the ubiquitous and terrifying Facebook, American Theater Magazine posted this"American Theatre magazine Quote for the day, from playwright Justin Tanner: "Writing a play is like trying to fold a parachute so it fits into an Altoids container."Heh. Nice.In the spirit of this simile, I shall offer to...
parabasis.typepad — -- The mixed bag of the rise of nerd culture.-- Speaking of nerds, online reprints of a great Little Lulu comic and Ron Rege Junior's "Math Comics"!-- Still need more nerdantry? Top Shelf has a great line up of books coming out soon. -- How we die, by Atul Gawande.-- Perhaps...
thecriticalcondition — Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood. (Warning: Spoilers Ahead) — What a difference a year makes, you guys. Around this time last season, True Blood and I were in a fight. The turgid Maryann business was driving me crazy, the...
parabasis.typepad — I'm normally a big fan of Lawyers, Guns and Money. We see eye-to-eye on lots of things, but there are some pretty big differences. One, their unrelenting Yankee haterdom. Two, their love of both soccer and hockey. Three, this review of Inception.I wasn't really planning on posting a review of...
parabasis.typepad — Fellow blogger Ben Owen and I were having a conversation recently about band names. Not "bad" band names (I'm not sure there's such a thing, honestly) but rather repellent band names. Band names so off putting for one reason or another that there is just no way you are going...
thecriticalcondition — Hey everyone! I’m back… and now I live in Manhattan. Whoa! And you know what I’ve discovered? Nothing helps me come down from a hectic day of moving like an hour of Wipeout, the messiest game show on TV. Andrew and I have been watching a lot of it recently, and...
parabasis.typepad — Grant Morrison, On Realism: "It's like this theory I've been developing – you know what they always say about kids? That kids can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. And that's actually bullshit. When a kid's watching 'The Little Mermaid,' the kids knows that those crabs that are singing and talking aren't...
parabasis.typepad — Over my honeymoon, I read AS Byatt's The Children's Book (short review: great story, I wish a better and more compassionate writer had written it) which contains a number of lengthy nonfictional sociopolitical asides about life and culture amongst the mid-to-upper crust in Edwardian England. As the main character is...
parabasis.typepad — I agree with commenter R. Lewis that it is high time we brought this weekly recommendation comment thread feature back! Woot! But let's expand on it as well... this used to be a theatre-only feature, where you'd recommend plays going on in your area (as in geographical, not bathing suit)...
playgoer.blogspot — “Davies’ papers are in Sidcup because that’s where they are…Aston fiddles with his plugs because he likes doing it.” -Harold Pinter, responding to student questions about The Caretaker. A 1966 letter he wrote to respond to questions from a class of (optimistic) students has...
parabasis.typepad — Isaac loves it. Lord knows I love it. People get engaged by it. It's everywhere.But you know what it doesn't do?Work. Like at all. But the shower-fresh brand has a dirty secret, as Brandweek notes:For instance, it was none other than P&G that picked up the Film Grand Prix this year...
parabasis.typepad — Aren't you at all curious to find out what the lowest rated show in Stagegrade/Criticometer's combined history is? Or what the reviews are like? Check it out here. So that's what it takes to beat out the JP Shanley musical...
matthewfreeman.blogspot — Check out my piece on Premiere.com about movie guns.10 Intimidating Movie Weapons That Kill What Needs Killin'
thecriticalcondition — Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood. (Warning: Spoilers Ahead) — This episode, “Trouble,” was kind of flawless. It may be my favorite of the entire series. I’ve been chewing on why this television morsel tastes oh-so-sweet, and here’s what I’m thinking:...
parabasis.typepad — If you know Ben Stein and happen to be unemployed, he doesn't think very highly of you.What an a-hole.Oh, and thanks for Jimmy Kimmel. Thanks a lot.
parabasis.typepad — First, a Ta-Nehisi Coates quote from yesterday:As an aside, the more I read stories like this, the more I think back to Prop 8, the more I think about the fact that there is even a debate as to whether, say, Mark Williams is a racist, the more I think...
parabasis.typepad — Having sat through (with some unfortunate regularity) smug pontifications from people who work in countries with heavy government arts subsidies, there's a part of me (a very petty part) that's enjoying the freak out about coming funding cuts at the Guardian Online. I don't want to expand on this point...
matthewfreeman.blogspot — Read about them here.Congrats to the Brick, James Comtois, Crystal Skillman, the Vampire Cowboys, Josh Conklin, Alex Roe, Retro Productions, and the many others that received nominations. Great stuff.Glee Club, which threw its hat in the ring for nominations, did not receive any. Disappointing bit of news, there. Thankfully, I...
parabasis.typepad — Tom Spurgeon points the way in his dyspeptic fashion to this Guardian piece about the supposed narrowing of range in the alt-comix world: It's at the literary end of comics you sense a narrowing of the range, the main strand being a sort of studied Pekarian drabness. You could call it...
parabasis.typepad — ... Both of the following I think are good starting points for broader conversations, if any commenters or co-bloggers are interested in picking up the baton. They both address different big problems with progressivish ways of talking about culture. The first, from Nitsuh Abebe, addresses the idea of placing certain subjectivities...
parabasis.typepad — Apparently, if Sarah Palin did that IWriteLike thing, the result she would get is Shakespeare. No, seriously! What?! RTWT to find out.