96th Oscars Reaction
15 for 23. Amazingly, my pessimistic strategy accounts for most of my misses. Perhaps it’s time to give the Academy more credit. Before I defend myself, some thoughts on the ceremony itself:
96th Oscars Will Win/Should Win
This year’s Oscar race hasn’t been quite as monotonous as last year’s. Even then, All Quiet on the Western Front managed some surprises on the night where we expected Everything Everywhere All at Once dominance. Which goes to show that this is all pointless and those of us that try to predict the results have […]
Star Trek: TOS Season 1
I’ve never watched Star Trek. Sorry, that’s already a lie. I had never watched a Star Trek television show. My entire experience with Star Trek is limited to the Chris Pine movies and the first six Shatner films. I’ve always had a tickling feeling that I should be into Star Trek, that I’m somehow supposed […]
96th Oscars Nominations Reaction
This year’s Academy Award nominees were just announced on Tuesday and I’m not used to watching them sneakily at work instead of setting an alarm to get up early. Rather than run down all the categories, I’m just going to call out the storylines I’m watching for as the show approaches. I’ve decided from now […]
Charlot #10: The Star Boarder
Release Date:April 4, 1914 Studio:Keystone Director:George Nichols Also Starring:Minta DurfeeEdgar KennedyGordon Griffith Tramp:Yes Worth Watching?Maybe not Whenever we went to new rooms, Charlie would ask the landlady, “Have you got a dark room, ma?” Edith Scales, theatre costume mistress and Chaplin’s touring guardian in youth, quoted in Empire News, 1903
My Top 10 Films of 2023 of 2023
No more schlock. That’s the promise I made myself. I had a lot of growing up to do this year, and one way I had to get that done was going to the movies less. So I made the decision that franchise schlock was not worth going to the theaters. Guardians of the Galaxy 3? […]
My Top 30 Music Videos of 2023
Kenneth Anger passed away in May this year. The director is probably most well-known for the 1963 experimental short Scorpio Rising, a film about neo-Nazi bikers set entirely to a soundtrack of contemporary pop music. I discovered it in a film class over 50 years later, and I can tell you it’s still a hit […]
My Favorite Albums of 2023
This list is mostly a side effect of next week’s. I’m usually pretty bad at keeping up with new music releases, and when I do I’m (1) not at all adventurous and (2) more interested in singles than albums. Maybe I’m part of the problem. I think the way I engage with music is closer […]
My Games of 2023
I didn’t play Tears of the Kingdom and I’m tired of starting these posts this way.The new Zelda is by all accounts a masterpiece, an enhancement of everything great about the previous one with new sandbox mechanics seemingly made to be shared on social media. I don’t doubt my friends when they rave about it. […]
Charlot #9: Cruel, Cruel Love
Release Date:March 26, 1914 Studio:Keystone Director:George Nichols Also Starring:Minta DurfeeChester ConklinEva Nelson Tramp:No Worth Watching?Not really I showed [A Woman of the Sea] exactly once at one theater … and that was the end of that. The film was promptly returned to Mr Chaplin’s vaults and no one has ever seen it again. Josef von […]