Movies & TV Notes, July-December 2018

Brief notes on just about everything I watched from July to December 2018. Read more reviews.

A WRINKLE IN TIME (2018) — Distracting camera movement. Precocious brother. Completely useless side-boy. A plot climax so anticlimactic, I literally didn’t realize it had occurred until it was over.

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM (2007) — A really terrible montage of people getting murdered. Like, kids and pregnant women. A really charming rom-com. One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

ANCHORMAN — Required rewatch every couple of years.

FRED ARMISEN’S ‘STANDUP FOR DRUMMERS’ — When anti-humor becomes so anti- that you’re just watching a dude fiddle around with drums for an hour because someone said he could. Continue reading →

Squier Vintage Modified Baritone Jazzmaster

Squier Vintage Modified Baritone Jazzmaster

I bought this baritone in 2016 because it was affordable and I happened to have the exact amount of money in my PayPal account after selling a dumb Star Wars collectible lightsaber on Ebay that I had won in a Subway contest (I’d say ‘long story,’ but that is essentially the entire story). This guitar prominently features the much-maligned Antigua finish. And rightfully maligned, I say. It’s weird as hell. It can seem all right in certain lighting conditions, but in general it looks like baby puke mixed with burnt baby puke. (Side note: I think the only time I’ve ever seen an Antigua finish instrument in popular culture is Horatio Sanz’s bass in the More Cowbell sketch.) Anyway, it’s a fine instrument: good sound and a nice beefy neck. As a former bass player, I approve.

I’ve decided to mess around a bit and do some visual upgrades. Nothing too crazy.  Continue reading →

Movies & TV Notes, January-June 2018

Brief notes on just about everything I watched from January to June 2018. Read more reviews.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) – A good double-feature with 2017’s The Post. Hoffman and Redford play some sort of unlikeable dudes. At least in the ‘film protagonist’ sense. Colorful desks and chairs. Jason Robards is no Tom Hanks.

ANNIHILATION (2018) – Really beautiful design. The plot was really simple. I think I liked it.

THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (2012) – A dedicated and interesting artist I knew pretty much nothing about other than whatever broke through my social media bubble back in 2010. Overall a very good doc.

ATLANTA (s1 & s2) – Presented as a straight drama, making all the humor and strange surreal bits hit even harder. Really well done show. Donald Glover & Lakeith Stanfield are both killing it. The free piano episode is some amazing bizzonkers shit, for real. Continue reading →

Movie & TV Notes, July-December 2017

Brief notes on just about everything I watched from July to December, 2017. Read more reviews.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984) – If two beings were to represent the extremities of the talent spectrum, George C. Scott would sit on one end and that shite Tiny Tim would sit on the other.

AZIZ ANSARI’S BURIED ALIVE (2013) – A good set. ‘Dating in the city’ isn’t really my genre, but a good set.

AZIZ ANSARI’S MADISON SQUARE (2015) – Too many crowd polls via clapping.

ARE YOU HERE – It’s as if Zach Galifianakis and Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler all filmed their scenes separately, reading from different scripts, and then the Mad Men guy just sorta edited together a movie on his laptop. Terrible soundtrack.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (season 3) – is not as good as seasons 1 and 2. Continue reading →

Broken Lines: Coming in 2018

I’m very pleased to announce that my story Broken Lines is finally gonna drop early next year. This project has gone through (too) many incarnations in the last twenty-odd years (weird 1-page vignettes, then a comic I wrote and drew and never published, then eight issues of a comic/prose hybrid, then I rewrote the first six issues into a book, then I redid all of the art, then I threw out 97% of the art and turned it into an illustrated novel). Continue reading →