Conventional wisdom about writing is conventionally wrong.
Watch The Killer–a classic by John Woo that influences tons of modern directors–and you’ll notice that the best parts are the quiet ones. The tension of face-offs between the assassin and the detective, guns pointed, but no triggers pulled. The scenes with Jenny, the singer blinded by the assassin’s unintentional shot. And the moments where … Continue reading THE KILLER by John Woo proves less is…
The point here isn’t whether a movie is worth watching. If you throw a rock in Hollywood, you’ll hit a movie critic. Check them out for Hit the theater, Wait for streaming, or Avoid this stinking turkey. What’s more interesting is WHY something is worth watching or skipping–and whether you’d watch it again. Time-loop movies … Continue reading A MAP OF TINY PERFECT THINGS battles four classic…
The lesson here might be: don’t do something so heinous and evil that Bruce Springsteen spends his Saturday writing a song about it, his Sunday recording that song, and his free time giving free concerts explaining how badly you screwed up. There’s a long history of protests songs, and an art to them. They can’t … Continue reading Streets of Minneapolis by Springsteen–and 9 more protest songs →
Yes, it’s a tragedy, and yes, it’s sillypants to abandon the Best Business Model Ever: musicians and studios sent you free content (music videos) that you play all day and night while MONEY ROLLS IN from advertising. RIP to MTV, 1981-2025. It’s a license to print money. But no, highly paid executives with MBA’s from … Continue reading MTV won’t play music videos, so I will: DAY 1 = 1981 →
Have you ever found a song and just replayed the living hell out of it? I don’t know why this thing hits me like a sledgehammer from the special personal collection of Peter Gabriel. But I keep replaying the thing, over and over. Here, watch this thing we called a “music video” a hundred years … Continue reading CEILINGS by Lizzy McAlpine is a freaking masterpiece →
I adore cheesy action movies, and BOSS LEVEL with Frank Grillo is amazing and perfect and wonderful. So when I saw the trailer for KING OF KILLERS, sure, it’s on Netflix, I’m not blowing three hours of my life and $50 on tickets and popcorn to see the thing. Let’s give it a go. Here’s … Continue reading Why KING OF KILLERS deserves to be hunted down by Betty Gilpin →
Listen: unless you live in an ice cave, you listen to music and have seen 5,923 music videos. Most of those are forgettable. There are reasons for that. Your typical Generic Music Video features shots of the band pretending to play their instruments as the lead singer pretends to sing. They’ll shoot in an alley, … Continue reading JUNGLE invigorates music videos by going old school →
There are two kinds of people: those who doomscroll and those who lie about it. Maybe you doomscroll about an election or the next Seahawks game. You might be obsessed with something that will never happen (zombie apocalypse) or a thing nobody talks about that is terrible and inevitable (Yellowstone supervolcano waking up, or the … Continue reading Why you DOOMSCROLL and how to stop it →
Yes, this is a music video, and we will play it because MTV resolutely refuses to do their damn job. Have a look and listen, then we will TALK ABOUT ALL THE THINGS. First off, I come here to talk smack about lyrics, not the actual music video. The video is fine. It’s not blowing … Continue reading The storytelling genius of HALF OF MY HOMETOWN by Kelsea Ballerini →
I come to praise OpenAI, not to bury it. Yet many experts are saying reality is catching up to the hype train. It didn’t take a server farm full of NVIDIA cards for me to come up with seven reasons to agree with the skeptics. Unless they invent Skynet (Artificial General Intelligence) and take over … Continue reading Top 7 reasons why OpenAI is doomed doomed DOOMED →