Category Archives: Movies

Timely Movie Review: The Rise of Skywalker

Posted on December 31, 2019 by

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD* “The dead speak!” The first line of The Rise of Skywalker‘s opening crawl was an immediate red flag. In Episode IX, the dead don’t just speak.  They give speeches. Much as I did with The Last Jedi, I made … Continue reading →

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Untimely Movie Review: How the West Was Won

Posted on December 2, 2019 by

As part of my flagging recommitment to this blog, I’ve dusted off my Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection, which I purchased back in early 2014.  I fairly regularly provided reviews of the films in that collection, which I’ve gradually watched … Continue reading →

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Timely Movie Review: Avengers – Endgame

Posted on April 28, 2019 by

The culmination of a 22-film franchise, Avengers: Endgame represents one of the most ambitious projects in filmmaking history—if not the most ambitious. Providing a thorough synopsis of a complex, multifaceted, three-hour film is both overly cumbersome and unnecessary for a review like this … Continue reading →

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Untimely Movie Review: Ben-Hur

Posted on January 28, 2019 by

There’s a moment, about two hours into Ben-Hur, when Charlton Heston’s title character tells Esther “We stood here before,” to which she replies “a long while ago,” and Heston responds, “Four years ago,” at which point I replied, “Feels longer.” That’s the … Continue reading →

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Timely Movie Review: The Last Jedi

Posted on December 20, 2017 by

I’m proud to say that I made it to The Last Jedi spoiler-free. But I did collect one bit of relevant information prior to seeing it.  I saw that the Rotten Tomatoes score was a strong 93%, with a robust sample size … Continue reading →

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Spy vs. Spy

Posted on July 18, 2016 by

In this episode, I examine one of the most infamous and protracted intellectual-property battles in entertainment history. The war over the rights to James Bond—specifically, the story and script for Thunderball—took over half a century to resolve fully. Luckily, this podcast … Continue reading →

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Timely Movie Review: The Force Awakens

Posted on April 8, 2016 by

We’ve all seen it by now, right? With this week’s blu-ray / digital release of The Force Awakens indicating that a reasonable time has elapsed, and since nobody else in the world has written anything online about Episode VII, I … Continue reading →

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Untimely Police Procedure Review: Running Scared

Posted on July 1, 2015 by

One of the more powerful and sadly ubiquitous stories of the past year has been the strained relationship between local law enforcement and the public, particularly in certain poor, heavily minority communities. Whether due to misguided militarization of police forces, … Continue reading →

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Untimely Movie Review: North by Northwest

Posted on May 26, 2015 by

After the bad taste in my mouth left by the subject of my last untimely review, I had rather high hopes for North by Northwest. It didn’t disappoint. North by Northwest is like a James Bond film, except if James Bond were … Continue reading →

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Untimely Movie Review: Gigi

Posted on April 3, 2015 by

After watching Gigi, I’m now more irritated than ever before that Saving Private Ryan didn’t win Best Picture. The movie—which did take home the Best Picture Oscar for 1958—begins with a borderline-elderly, thick-accented Parisian breaking the fourth wall to explain that … Continue reading →

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