For the good of the country, we are often told, the infighting between liberals (or, as they are properly understood, the party of nice rich people) and the left must cease. Exactly which faction is supposed to lower its guns first is implicit, but so far they refuse to do …
Fascism, for reasons that should not be difficult to divine, has been very much on my mind of late. My bedside table has borne a stack of books about the growth, nature, and origins of fascism, mixed in with the novels, for the last six months or so, and understanding …
It is a false dichotomy to say that in this world there are cat people and there are dog people, and never the twain shall meet. There are many — myself included — who love the company of both animals, and have been lucky enough to have both dog and …
Spring is in the air, and a young man’s heart turns to thoughts of love. I am not a young man, however, so while the rest of you are out enjoying sunshine and greenery and doing your grotesque courting rituals, I am inside basking in the warming glow of a …
It is a canard often, and falsely, leveled at Hollywood that it has no new ideas. In fact, Hollywood has innumerable new ideas; they’re just all bad. If you’re in the television or film business and have a really shitty idea that nobody asked for or could possibly want, you …
See, here’s the thing: the Spider-Man cartoon theme was, well, amazing. No sane person could argue against that. But the Captain America and Hulk cartoon themes were dumb as shit. And have they gotten any less shit-dumb in the last 40 years? No, they have not. All that has happened …
Earlier this week, we discussed how nostalgia for the superhero comics of ’60s and ’70s, on the basis that the Big Two were creating more original characters and taking more risks, is misguided not because it’s false on its face, but because the original characters being created were fucking ridiculous. …
Today, Wednesday, March 8th, 2017, is International Women’s Day. It will be marked by protests, marches, rallies, and a proposed general strike by women — the ‘Day Without A Woman’ — in reaction to the election of Donald Trump as president and the legislation, remarkably hostile to women, that he …
Many years ago, when ‘blogs’ were a thing, I wrote a series called the Geek Index, in which I examined the DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series in order to illustrate that comic books were written for mental defectives. It did not require close examination. Nowadays, geeks …
A new wave of Russophobia is sweeping the nation, surely the high-water point for such shenanigans since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s familiar; much of it echoes the anti-communist rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the closest analogue in presidential history to Donald Trump, only this time our …
When the announcement was made a few months ago that Netflix would be shepherding a new series entitled The Santa Clarita Diet, I didn’t exactly mark my calendar, because that name is terrible. I was even less inspired when it was announce that the show would be a zombie comedy, a …
It can be extraordinarily difficult to write about mental illness, in fiction and in reality. Even now, as I write this, I select my words with care when I say that the current trend in television to try and make entertainment out of mental illness — intelligent and empathetic entertainment, …
Who among us does not practically break a leg running to the box office when we hear those magical words “three-hour bittersweet German art dramedy”? The third film by the director Maren Ade, whose work I have never seen but which has been highly praised by those who have, seems like …
There is a moment, late in I am Not Your Negro, where the great writer and thinker James Baldwin is appearing on Dick Cavett’s talk show to discuss the one subject that consumed him like no other during his life: America’s compulsive reluctance to address the reality of its treatment of …
In professional foot-ball’s “Super Bowl”, the New England Patriots, owned by a man who vocally supports a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure, defeated the Atlanta Falcons, vocally supported by an owner who is a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure. This brings to a close America’s most recent sporting season; until such …
