These posts are text-only.
Note: due to some ingredient acquisition issues, the Sandwich Century project is going to go off-book as far as alphabetic order for a week or so. We’ll try and set things right by the next entry. There are certain things that come to possess an iconic status not because of …
Key Largo, as can be sniffed out from its somewhat stagey, cramped qualities, had its origins as a stage play. It bears little resemblance to the original product — a bit of a surprise since Maxwell Anderson was, at the time, an extremely popular playwright and a go-to source for …
Humans are the only animals that can make metaphors or moral judgments. Unfortunately, we make far too few of the former and far too many of the latter. The appealing thing about placing social problems in a moral context is that it allows you to start ignoring the problem; if …
I want to like Stephen King. I really, really do. He’s undeniably an important writer, at least insofar as he’s written a ton of books that have sold enormously well, and become virtually synonymous with “contemporary American novelist”. He’s managed to remain successful even in a terrible downtime for fiction, …
“I never met anybody,” Richard Pryor once pointed out, “who said when they were a kid: I wanna grow up and be a critic.” Did he ever meet anyone who said ‘I wanna grow up and watch movies and listen to music and read books all day’? That will remain …
It was in summer of the first year of his second term that the President decided that he didn’t want to go anywhere anymore. It was announced rather precipitately to the public although it was certainly known to his inner circle for quite some time, because when you’re the President …
When I was thirty-two and still living alone in the rented house near the river, I found myself in conflict with the radio announcer. Nowadays I need quiet to write; I cannot abide even the softest music, or the flicker of the television with the sound off. But then I …
First of all, how about that title, eh? The movie could be a heap of shit and it would still win points for the title, which sounds like some lost French new wave picture. Éclat de Silence, avec Alain Delon. But no, it’s an American film noir, albeit a pretty …
I’ve always taken a special displeasure in the ‘things were better before’ approach to culture. While it’s undeniable that taste is taste, it strikes me as a particularly lazy way to come at the world around you to simply let your tastes calcify without protest. Sure, it’s hard to keep …
MANHATTAN. “Okay this one is easy. It’s what you call a basic, a basic cocktail. You take a whiskey, a rye whiskey, and vermouth, and a cherry. And there you ugh! Sorry, there you go! It’s easy! It was named after the Manhattan cocktail. I mean, the Manhattan Hotel. In …
Judging a movie by its potential is probably skirting the edge of fairness, but the creepy 1947 carnival-noir Nightmare Alley tempts pretty strongly in that direction. The feeling it finally leaves you with is an unsatisfying one, both in the way it frequently opens up possibilities it doesn’t quite live …
Along with all the other exciting and annoying content to hit this site in 2011, I am getting ready to kick off a special feature called The Sandwich Century. Over the course of the year, I will prepare, consume, and document a hundred different sandwiches, and you will follow it …
1. A popular band makes it a point while on tour to stick with performing material familiar to their fans, reckoning that this is what they most want to hear. Detractors cite this as a reason the band is unadventurous, predictable, and dull. 2. One night, the bandleader, deciding to …
From “Peter9827″‘s review of Blues Brothers 2000: Alright Here is my review of Blues Brothers 2000 the sequel to the 1980 Classic the Blues Brothers Which was one of my favorites this also one of my favorites too.But Before I begin this review this movie has nothing to do with …
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR Dates: 1775-1783 Primary Opponent: Great Britain Primary Cause: Desire to overthrow the burden of colonialist oppression in the form of elevated tea prices Deaths: 15,590 combat/51,080 total Who was to blame?: The British, for not fucking off and letting us drink our goddamn tea in peace …
