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(…or, Everything That’s Wrong with Deadpool & Wolverine) Well, I finally got around to watching Marvel’s latest blockbuster, Deadpool & Wolverine. This was the first Marvel movie I’d watched in a while, and now I remember why. Holy smoke, what a crappy film! As I watched it—doggedly, hoping it would get better, resisting the urge…
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( *** Spoilers Below ***) When most people think of the archetypal techno-thriller writer, they probably think of Tom Clancy. He didn’t invent the genre, but with the publication of his 1984 mega-hit The Hunt for Red October, he took it to a whole new level of mainstream popularity. Henceforth, the pop lit shelves in…
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As a long-time, struggling, nominal “artist,” I am aesthetically opposed to the idea of a supergroup. The very notion sounds like a BS, 1990s-era, dot-com bubble businessplan: 1.) Pick great musicians from two or more already famous and successful rock groups, 2.) put them in a studio with all the booze and/or drugs they want,…
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Author’s Note: Michael Mann’s first feature film, Thief, is on-sale for dirt-cheap on Prime Video at the moment. So, I thought I’d re-post a short essay I wrote about it on my old blog some years ago. Enjoy! When my son and I went to New York City over the summer, we stayed in Queens,…
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Ever since Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide in 1994, Courtney Love has gotten a lot of hate from the bros. I don’t know why. I always liked her and her music. If Kurt Cobain was my generation’s Jim Morrison, then she was our Patti Smith. I say “was” because Love hasn’t released much music recently. I…
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I was going to make a new Christmas Sci-Fi List to go with the first one that I wrote some years ago. But…well…I flaked out. So, here is a belated list of some of my favorite science fiction novels. And why not? New Year’s Day is a time to think about the future, right? RIGHT?…
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(…or, Why I Leave My Christmas Lights Up Till January 5th) I’m a big fan of the Brother Cadfael novels by Edith Pargeter. Brother Cadfael is a medieval monk who has two areas of expertise: botany (plant-based medicine) and solving crimes. Ever since I began reading the Cadfael series about twenty years ago, I’ve been…
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1.) Alternate Realities One of the great things about living in a university town is that you get to hear some great lectures by famous people—for free. Back in the 80s, I attended a lecture on the subject of evolution by the late, great Stephen Jay Gould. He talked about how incredibly subtle mutations in the…
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