

They were Little Women
In a classic Simpsons episode, Homer Loves Flanders (s5 e16), Homer actually befriends, for one time only, his long-hated,...

The Searchers
I used to not like John Wayne. For some reason, in my head, I thought he was boring, too often the hero, constantly calling people...

Lagavulin 11 Offerman Edition ('21)
Between slowing down on writing in general and slowing down on how rapidly I do whiskey-related posts, I'm surprised how spread out the...

Studio Ghibli
A big highlight of having HBOMax has been diving into its wealth of foreign films, in particular those from Japan. I've enjoyed seeing...

Xenophon's Ten Thousand
In case you couldn't tell, I've really been into ancient Greece lately. After hearing about it a couple times in other books, I decided...

Battleship Potemkin and the Untouchables
Fairly recently I watched Battleship Potemkin (1925), a silent-era Soviet propaganda film that (amusingly in retrospect) was banned in...

And Maggie Makes Three
I've stated before there's nothing, in pop culture or elsewhere, that's had a bigger impact on my sense of humor than the Simpsons. I...

Top 10 favorite movies
It's been on my mind for a while to do a top 10 movies list. The problem, more than anything else, was I wasn't fully sure what I wanted...

The RoP and the compression of time
I didn't like Amazon's The Rings of Power. Week to week, from a higher level, it felt like a chore to watch. The details of the plot...

Mull of Kintyre
Our eldest loves music and is either singing to himself or wants something played for him all the time. The last year+ most of his...

Watchmen and the giant squid
Over the last few weeks I've been watching HBO's Watchmen (2019), one of the shows I was most curious about when signing up for Max. I...

Yojimbo
I recently signed up for HBOMax, getting the discounted deal for a whole year paid up front. Yes, this was in part due to the release of...

Mediocre movie, great scene (Fright Night)
Sometimes you'll find a movie that's overall fine, whatever, but then has a particularly good scene that, as a result, really improves...

A reveal at Khazad-dûm
Amazon's the Rings of Power debuts this week (tonight!) after years of production and much wonderment about what it's going to include....

Thief
James Caan died about a month ago. Soon after I saw a few film people I respect on Twitter talking about Thief (1981). I'd never heard of...

Emotional investment (BCS finale)
Monday night was the series finale of Better Call Saul, something I covered two years ago (link here). I want to talk about how it all...

Mad Max: Fury Road
The term 'non-stop thrill ride' is overused in describing movies, whether it appears in trailers or wherever else. It's untrue in...

The Green Knight
What do you think about when you hear King Arthur? There's the sword in the stone where Arthur's worth and lineage are proven. His grand...

Prince of Egypt
This time of year, in the lead-up to Easter (aka Lent), I always seem to hear about The Prince of Egypt. I'd never seen the 1998...



















