Pay Back Africa

Tonight’s blog entry, which ought to be a relatively simple movie review, is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to write, which is in itself is illustrative of how thorny cultural criticism has become in late-stage capitalism.  The reasons for this are manifold and all worth exploring:  …

Animal Eyes

Paul Kingsnorth, it’s safe to say, is a man of special talent.  His work with the Dark Mountain Project — one of the only cultural movements to take seriously the concept of a post-human world — and his insightful environmental journalism alone would be enough to establish his brilliance and …

The Floating World

Stephen King adaptations, as my friend Scott Von Doviak can tell you, are a real mixed bag.  When you’re the best-selling author since Johnny Bible, though, everything you write is eventually going to find its way to the big screen, sometimes more than once.  The holiday season saw the release …

On Thin Ice

There have been a number of films lately — and are likely to be more, as I continue to get older and things I think of as happening in the not-too-distant past become ancient history — in which things are fictionally re-created that I remember as vivid memories.  Nothing really …

The Professional

It’s been ten years since Donald Westlake left us, and it’s a loss that’s still deeply felt for those of us with a taste for pure throwback noir novels.  Westlake was the creator and author, under the pseudonym Richard Stark, of a series of novels featuring the enigmatic professional criminal …

Please Baby Please

I’ve been defending the films of Spike Lee for a long, long, long time.  I’m old enough to remember having very deep thoughts (well, as deep as could be expected for a 16-year-old suburban white kid) about the first incarnation of She’s Gotta Have It, his very first full-length feature film, and being fascinated …