On the blogs I always make time for is Mark Evanier’s “News from ME.” Today, he wrote something that felt in line with Wednesday’s post about Scorsese and the film industry and, well, it fits me more than it doesn’t. People are always writing to ask me my opinion of the latest blockbuster movie release. I’ll save you the trouble: I probably haven’t seen it and might not for some time. Sometimes, that’s because nothing…
Last month, I wrote about how accomplished filmmaker Martin Scorsese termed the many, many Marvel films as “not cinema.” His colleague Francis Ford Coppola joined in, going further in calling the films “despicable.” Superhero fandom has not been kind. (Thankfully, some superhero actors keep on being superheroic, so there’s that). On Monday, Martin Scorsese wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about the interview that kicked this all off — and where he…
Back in 2016, the state of Maine became the first state to use ranked choice voting in all their elections, including the Federal ones. There was something of a silly kerfuffle, as the paradigm shift hit established political power right in the comfort zone. But wait, what is ranked choice voting anyway? Well, here’s a fun video by CGP Grey to illustrate it with animals. As you might have gleaned above, I’m in favor of…
There’s something I’ll always find fascinating about abandoned and empty cities — and no, it’s not just horror-related, despite the season. So when I learned about California City and the plans for a great metropolis that never was, I had to check out the pictures… and maybe one day, visit it in person.
Perhaps it’s because NaNoWriMo is nigh, but I found this piece in Wired about exploring and expanding the notions of “must read” works interesting. (I’m currently trying to fold in a bit more reading each day).
What with Marvel movies on the mind of late, just in case you didn’t see this make the rounds this past week, Chris Evans, aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Captain America, does some amazing stuff off-camera. What kind of stuff? How about giving back to his childhood theater? And then there’s the whole personal anecdote about dealing with anxiety and depression. Good casting, Marvel. Good casting.
Francis Ford Coppola has joined his colleague Martin Scorsese in dismissing superhero films in general and Marvel in particular, calling them “despicable.” Rosy Cordero covers it in Entertainment Weekly and David Crow has a nice contextual take over at Den of Geek. Sigh. Much like Bugs Bunny, superhero films might not be considered “high art,” but they’re not going away anytime soon. Besides which, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar already covered this: he’s not wrong, but he’s not…
Just last month I was musing about how, even in the face of “nerddom’s” ascension in all aspects of pop culture, people still feel the need to belittle or otherwise distance themselves and their work from science fiction as if the genre itself was wildly radioactive. Now, in the face of a more meditative and gritty look at the origins of Joker –with more than a few homages to Martin Scorsese’s films– Scorsese himself felt…
Here’s a video that was posted on October 4th and has been making the rounds. I’ve seen Jim Meskimen before (he’s phenomenal) and I’ve seen “deep fakes” before, but this is quite the combo. We live in interesting (and potentially scary) time.
I saw Ad Astra this past weekend, which is doing its part to make sci-fi hard like vibranium not squishy like flubber Scientist James O’Donoghue decided to make an animation to demonstrate how “warp speeds” worked in Star Trek, its various incarnations known for loving science… while certainly not being beholden to rigidly adhering to known norms because writers. In any case, even though vast distances can be crossed in three days or three weeks…