Category: Film
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Top Three Cartoon Moments
I've been a fan of the classic Warner Brothers Looney Toons cartoons since I was about six years old, sitting in front of the old black and white television on Saturday mornings. There are plenty of people who have compiled lists of the greatest cartoons, but this is a little different. This is my three…
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Iron Man 3
I don't want to get into the habit of acting like a poor man's Roger Ebert and reviewing every movie I see. I'm not a moviemaker, I'm not a particularly representative moviegoer, and my eyes start to glaze over when I see the word "cinema." But I do want to talk a little about Iron…
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Battleship (Part 3): Aliens
I write science fiction. A lot of my stories have alien beings in them. I like to think I'm pretty good at creating aliens and alien civilizations. Which is why I am developing an irresistible urge to drive out to California and shout at every screenwriter who has used aliens in a film during the…
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Battleship (Part 2): What Could Have Been
I'm going to continue posting my reactions to watching the movie Battleship. Today I want to talk about a startling thought I had when it ended: It could have been a good movie. In fact, I have a strong suspicion that it began as a much better movie than it ultimately became. I don't have…
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Battleship (Part 1): Not Stupid Enough
My family recently rented the awful big-budget action movie Battleship, which of course was based on the board game. I learned a great deal from watching Battleship, mostly about things that I don't like. Today I'll talk about the first thing that bugged me: stupidity. Battleship was stupid — in a Facebook comment I said…
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Movie Review (sort of): Forbidden Planet
Last Sunday the Crack Team went to see a showing of the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet at Popcorn Noir in Easthampton. I had never seen it on a big screen, and it's definitely better than watching it on television. I'm not actually going to write a review. It's a great movie, even after half…
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Why Comedians Aren’t Funny
Lately I've been watching a lot of standup comedy bits on YouTube, and as a result my thoughts drifted to the question of why so few comedians are able to make the jump to film. I'm sure we all know about the Saturday Night Live curse — where movies starring SNL cast members not named…
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Ozblogging: Oz the Great and Powerful Review
I saw Oz: The Great and Powerful earlier this week with my wife and my 10-year-old son. He liked it a lot, we . . . liked it less than he did. Oz: The Great and Powerful isn't a bad movie. It's a perfectly fun children's movie that adults can enjoy. But I'm afraid that…
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Game of Thrones
Some members of the Crack Team have become devoted fans of the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. Consequently I've seen my share of episodes. It's a good show, with great actors. It also reveals something very interesting about a change in how people…
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Wizard Hygiene
This past Sunday I took my family to see The Hobbit at the multiplex. I'm not going to give a full movie review here — the blogosphere is full of self-appointed cinematic geniuses explaining how they would have done things better. (I even do that myself sometimes, just not today.) If you're interested: I liked…
The Cambias Digression 