Anthony Marra’s Mercury Pictures Presents follows a wide cast of characters through Hollywood and WWII. But does he do too much? … More Hollywood, Corruption, and the World: Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra
Celebrity memoirs always give me pause because the ones I’ve read tend to feel as though they have a thick coat of veneer. They’re always conscious of their image, so what they present in the memoir feels calculated or even whitewashed. As such, reading a celebrity memoir usually feels like an exercise in futility: by … More Life as a Work in Progress: In Pieces, by Sally Field
In this remake of the classic movie A Star is Born, Lady Gaga falls in love with Bradley Cooper and rises to fame while his career stalls as he struggles with addiction. … More A Star is Born is a Sweet and Bleak Movie
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri generated a lot of heat during award season after it was released in 2017. It won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. It scored again at the SAG Awards, winning Best Cast in addition to awards for Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. … More Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a Garbage Movie
If ever there was a book that seemed to have been written specifically for me, this is it. And it did not disappoint. I’ve been fascinated by the Academy Awards since childhood, when I would get sent to bed before the show was over, then sneak out of my room to finish watching with the … More Pictures at a Revolution is Porn for Film Buffs
La La Land was adored by critics and audiences alike, setting a record for Golden Globe wins and nearly winning an Oscar for Best Picture. But it’s a garbage movie, and I’m breaking my silence about it. … More La La Land is a Garbage Movie
I’ve been a movie buff for a long time. For a time in my early twenties I actually studied the Oscars. Seriously, I studied them. I got to the point where if you named a year from 1950 to present I could have told you the move that won Best Picture that year and who won … More West of Eden, by Jean Stein: Book Review
#WhiteBoyProblems As I said in my most recent review (of Fourth of July Creek), I’ve developed a serious impatience for novels that essentially come down to white boys who can’t get their act together. As such, Arts & Entertainments was another big struggle for me. You see, it centers on “Handsome” Eddie Hartley, a high … More Book Review: Arts & Entertainments, by Christopher Beha
“This was the forever show in Dexterland, and tickets were nonrefundable and one-way only.” By the time Jeff Lindsay got to this, the seventh book in his Dexter series (not to be confused with the TV show, which, as we have discussed, is very different), the books were beginning to fall into a bit of … More Book Review: Dexter’s Final Cut, by Jeff Lindsay
“For every man there exists bait he cannot resist swallowing.” I started this book on the subway en route to work one morning. I almost missed my stop. That is something that hasn’t happened to me in far too long. It’s an exhilarating sensation, to get so caught up in a book that everything around … More Book Review: Night Film, by Marisha Pessl
Supposedly Fun 