Let this be a lesson to you, America, now seemingly in the autumn of your brief reign as the primary global power: The decline of the British Empire sure did some fucked up shit to those people. As far as I can see it—based exclusively on watching their movies, naturally—the once proudly stoic, stiff-upper-lip bunch […]
Zac Pennington
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
The Lennon/Garant Walk of Shame
Of the two cursed camps that emerged from the ashes of MTV’s mid-’90s sketch experiment The State, it seems that the Jews are the clear winners on the comedy front. The Stella contingent continue to beat the laugh pants off the trio of Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney, and Ben Garant—whose diminishing returns have recently culminated […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Criminally Squandered
Aces: A Chilling Reminder of Adolescence
By the end of the needlessly complicated six-minute montage of major plot points and backstory at its very onset, Smokin’ Aces began to seem suspiciously familiar. And then it hit me: You know that super badass screenplay you cooked up in your hormone-addled little mind after an especially revelatory weekend watching third-rate Tarantino rip-offs in […]
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I’m Staying Home
INCONCEIVABLY GREAT
Celebrated playwright, graduate of Harvard and Oxford, and that guy who says, “Inconceivable!” over and over in The Princess Bride: Wallace Shawn is all of these things. But above all that, Shawn is a testament to the power of the human spirit. Despite standing at a rather rotund 5’2″, sporting a prominent toilet-bowl haircut, and […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Great Christmas Compromise
X-Mas Afternoon… At the Museum
Dateline: December 25th, 2006, approximately 2:30 pm. The entirety of your otherwise estranged family is awkwardly congregated in your parents’ living room, and everyone—from your step-sister’s illegitimate, hyper-active progeny to your ancient “Uncle” Mark, whose glassy eyes have incidentally been weeping like a pug dog’s all morning—has collectively blown their Christmas wad. Too early to […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Expecting the Expected
Minors: Perfectly Unremarkable!
Just so we’re clear, I’m not going to insult either of our intelligences by providing an evenhanded synopsis/critique of Unaccompanied Minors—a gratuitous family flick about some kids stuck in an airport on Christmas—because frankly, you already know what I’m gonna say. (If not, allow me to direct you to the convenient, if somewhat utilitarian, headline […]
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
HORROR REDUX
This weekend, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning opens—yet more proof that, from The Omen to The Wicker Man to The Amityville Horror, Hollywood is more than happy to tarnish the gory, teenager-filled dreams of creepy, trench coat-clad adults for the cheap, flashy thrills of a younger generation. Since these rehashes show no signs of […]
Posted inMovies & TV
All-Girl Summer Fun Cult
The Wicker Man Is Not Delicious
Considering the haste with which modern Hollywood happily greenlights soul-crushingly bad modernizations of horror classics, I suppose it was only a matter of time until we would have to face a remake of The Wicker Man. One of the more bizarre films in the crowded cannon of classic ’70s horror, The Wicker Man endures as […]
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One-Third Brilliant
The Awkward Homage of I’m Your Man
To call Leonard Cohen the world’s greatest living lyricist isn’t so much an overstatement as it is an inevitability—over the course of 11 studio albums and roughly 40 years, Cohen has essentially rewritten what it can mean to be a writer of pop songs, influenced countless songwriters in his wake, and single-handedly redeemed Canadian popular […]
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Desperate Man Blues
Daniel Johnston Plays Cards with the Devil
Of all the outsider geniuses in rock music’s crowded compendium, there are few more deserving of a lovingly crafted, silver-screen tribute than the absurdly brilliant Daniel Johnston. With a list of fans that reads like a who’s who of ’90s alternative rock (see: Beck, Pearl Jam, and most notably Kurt Cobain, among countless others), the […]
Posted inMusic
Top of the Pops
Art Brut Takes the Fall to the Bank
Though I think it may be a little off the mark, I can’t quite help but think that the best way to approach Art Brut—one of London’s most promising pop exports in some time—is with something of a back-handed comparison: Art Brut are something like a low-rent the Fall. Which isn’t to say that Art […]
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Too Fast, Too Soon
The Death of a New York Doll
For most of its members, the New York Dolls seemed less like a rock band than a slow-burning terminal disease—though only one of its original members (drummer Billy Murcia) would fall during the band’s desperately short lifetime, the lives of most of the remaining members would be spent courting new lows of clichéd rock ‘n’ […]