The Music Men

The Music Men

The more I learn about popular music, the convinced I become about 1997 being ground zero for pop culture's decline. Like all sectors of the entertainment industry, pop music suffered a marked collapse--not just in sales, but in quality--in the late 90s. What happened ca. 1996-1999 that brought popular music…
Hollywood Shanghaied

Hollywood Shanghaied

Lest anyone cling to the delusion that our lawless ruling class operates on a profit motive, one of their most loyal servants has willingly walked the plank.   It's official: North American box office revenue plummeted 80 percent in 2020 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and unprecedented theater closures, while…
The Village Troll

The Village Troll

My recent reviews of M. Night Shyamalan's Eastrail 177 Trilogy sparked a discussion of the controversial director's other films on and off this blog. One movie in his catalogue that proved more contentious than most was 2004's period thriller The Village. On the meta level, The Village is noteworthy because it…
Trains and Traditions

Trains and Traditions

Say what you will about the MAGA movement. A necessary premise of its core argument is that America was once a great nation, but somewhere along the line we lost our way. The fact that this message resonated with half the country should sound alarm bells. An older thread from…
Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

The recent post I did on beloved 80s horror-comedy Gremlins hinted that a review of the sequel was forthcoming, so here it is. First off, I mentioned that Gremlins 2: The New Batch belongs to that rare breed of sequel that surpasses the original. Much like the follow up to another little…
Gremlins

Gremlins

A common malady among aspiring artists is to get hung up on an established set of rules. That's not to deny that any rules exist. Art is a work performed to a standard. Where artists run into trouble is when a type of creative myopia sets in that sees only…
Rehabilitating E.T.

Rehabilitating E.T.

You know that a new medium has come into its own when its subculture bleeds into pop culture. Old media still defaults to treating video games like some novel fad, even though they've been around for half a century now. Yet gaming rivals Hollywood as the most influential force in…
Anime Back in the Day

Anime Back in the Day

Back in high school and college when I was first getting into the anime scene, I came to notice a recurring and highly vexing phenomenon. Bootleg VHS tapes were still the main source of new stuff from Japan back then. Getting our fix legit meant sending away via a mail…
The Crow

The Crow

Lately, movie reviews and true accounts of high strangeness have become popular post subjects here. With the spooky season upon us and Hollywood on its knees due to Corona-chan, I thought it fitting to post my analysis of a movie that is itself a nexus of high strangeness. Said to…
Batman Returns

Batman Returns

Tim Burton's first Batman movie was a classic black swan event. Like Star Wars, it was a genre film by a fledgling director whose quirky vision inspired little confidence in the corporate office and the press. Also like Lucas, Burton defied expectations to create a genre-redefining cultural landmark that launched…