I’ll be reading from The Auralia Thread at Food for Thought next Thursday at 12:30 in the afternoon at Seattle Pacific University’s Library. I expect I’ll read sections from Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight, along with a few words about where we can expect to see Cal-raven, the ale boy, the beastmen, and Auralia’s colors next. And then I’ll take some questions. Need directions? Here you go. Also… free Auralia Thread posters and postcards for anybody who wants them! Read more
You can watch a new clip from Pixar’s Up here. Read more
The Oscar nominations announced this morning are so spectacularly ridiculous that I’m not going to bother covering any Oscar news this year. How any of those Supporting Actress nominations were chosen over Rosemarie Dewitt in Rachel Getting Married… How The Reader could be chosen over WALL-E (oh, right, it’s about The Holocaust!)… How Ron Howard could get a Best Director nomination over Andrew Stanton or Christopher Nolan… How The Fall could be ignored for cinematography… How Bill Irwin could be... Read more
1. A few weeks back I got around to watching Horton Hears a Who. I’ve been putting together a review in bits and pieces since then, and I posted it today. In short, I wanted to turn it off at the halfway point. And speaking of thumbs-down reviews, what’s going on with reviews for Gran Torino? I haven’t seen it, but the split amongst critics is bewildering. And most of the film critics I know and admire are giving it... Read more
… to show their utter lack of appreciation for animation as an art form. Or they can see what film critics across the country saw. They can decide that cartoons are just for the kids. Or they can get what the L.A. Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics, the Online Film Critics Society, and it placed third (behind #1 Flight of the Red Balloon and #2 A Christmas Tale) in IndieWire’s survey of 100 film critics. Check out Rotten Tomatoes.... Read more
I haven’t seen Gran Torino yet. Normally, I would rush out to see a Clint Eastwood movie. But I’ve been insanely busy the last several weeks, and I’ve had to choose my movies very, very carefully, so I’d be sure to pick a winner. So I started paying attention to what I read. I must say, I was alarmed when film critic Mike D’Angelo posted this on Twitter: (more…) Read more
Jose (Eduardo Verástegui) is a New York chef in his brother’s Mexican restaurant, and he’s such a good chef that the kitchen can hardly operate without him. But Jose would never win any of television’s “top chef” competitions.” His heart is too big. It’s so big, in fact, that his eyes almost shine, and his face is so wracked with sympathy for people in need that it’s easy to believe that he’s actually Jesus in disguise. And that’s a good... Read more
The LA Times reports what happened behind the scenes that led to Disney throwing Aslan out of the Magic Kingdom. Read more
WARNING: This post is written by an unapologetic U2 fanboy. Extreme enthusiasm ahead. UPDATE: Here’s Ann Powers in the LA Times considering the new song. I’ve just listened to “Get On Your Boots” about five times through after buying it from iTunes. It showed up at the iTunes Store for a very short time tonight, and now the Search that I used to find it isn’t working anymore. (I’m sure it’ll be back up there soon.) Anyway… in my humble... Read more
The famous American painted Andrew Wyeth died today at 91. Kimmelman writes: Wyeth gave America a prim and flinty view of Puritan rectitude, starchily sentimental, through parched gray and brown pictures of spooky frame houses, desiccated fields, deserted beaches, circling buzzards and craggy-faced New Englanders. A virtual Rorschach test for American culture during the better part of the last century, Wyeth split public opinion as vigorously as, and probably even more so than, any other American painter including the other... Read more
Looking Closer
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In