Blog Archives
sI will go on record saying that I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged more than I didn’t. Ayn Rand and I wouldn’t see eye to eye in a number of areas, and I have a feeling she’d hold me in contempt in a few other areas, given her aggressive atheism and disdain for charity and my relatively […]
SUPERVERSIVE: “A Series of Unfortunate Events” Part 2: The Baptism of Lemony Snicket
Tuesday , 3, January 2017 Book Review, Superversive 6 CommentsIn part one of this series, “The Dark Brilliance of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’”, I ended my article with this: I was going to end this article here, but I got to thinking: Would the world be a better place if these books didn’t exist? It’s an interesting question without, I think, a straightforward answer. Being old […]
SUPERVERSIVE: The Dark Brilliance of “A Series of Unfortunate Events”
Tuesday , 27, December 2016 Book Review, Fiction, Superversive 9 CommentsLemony Snicket’s (the pen name of Daniel Handler) “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is making the news again now that a new Netflix series is coming out. After the okay but ultimately disappointing movie adaptation the trailers for the Netflix series look as if they’re really going to get things right, even if Neil Patrick Harris […]
SUPERVERSIVE: “It’s a Wonderful Life” is Dark, Brutal, and the most Superversive movie ever made
Tuesday , 20, December 2016 Superversive 1 CommentOkay, I’ve been waiting ALL YEAR to do the “It’s a Wonderful Life” post for Superversive Tuesday. For those living under a rock, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the endlessly remade and parodied Christmas classic about a man, George Bailey, on the verge of suicide. Before he can complete this ultimate act of despair God […]
SUPERVERSIVE: The Problem of Prequels
Tuesday , 6, December 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 10 CommentsI have a theory: Most prequels and side stories are doomed to be terrible. The reason for this is fairly simple if you stop to take a moment and think about it: if the content of a prequel (or side story) was interesting enough or a relevant enough to be a story, the story would […]
SUPERVERSIVE Full Review: “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
Tuesday , 22, November 2016 Fiction, Superversive 4 Comments(My quick review is here.) I have a love-hate thing going on with J.K. Rowling. On one hand, her personal and political opinions are obnoxious, nasty, contemptible, and make it very, very clear that she hates and despises people who think like me. And that’s not even to TOUCH the “Dumbledore is gay” controversy. ON […]
SUPERVERSIVE: Why “The Incredibles” is the greatest superhero movie ever made
Wednesday , 16, November 2016 Fiction, Superversive 14 CommentsI have a lot of respect for animation, and the highest respect for Pixar. Animation is the one genre where you’re allowed to take real risks since the critics are never going to give you the respect you deserve anyway, so why try to please them? Children’s animation especially tends to take more risks than […]
SUPERVERSIVE Review: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin.
Tuesday , 8, November 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 10 CommentsI don’t hate fantasy novels, I just generally prefer science fiction. I have my tastes, y’know? We all do. Mine usually run to things with spaceships and antimatter torpedoes and Ominous Dark Things from Beyond the Stars, but every now and then, it’s good to branch out. Get a change of pace. Get some elves […]
SUPERVERSIVE: How Netflix’s “Daredevil” can pull off “Born Again”
Tuesday , 1, November 2016 Book Review, Fiction, Superversive Leave a commentFull disclaimer: I LOVE “Daredevil: Born Again”, by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. Not like. Love. I make a point to pick it up and re-read it a few times a year, and it is one of the very few books I read – and I mean I can count them on one hand – […]
SUPERVERSIVE and Horror Stories: A Day-After-Halloween Special.*
Tuesday , 1, November 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 5 Comments*Yes, I know it’s All Saint’s Day, but then talking about horror doesn’t make all that much sense. I didn’t grow up watching horror movies, unless by “horror” you mean things like Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, and I don’t, particularly. As an Eighties kid, I had a pretty clear idea of what horror was […]
SUPERVERSIVE review: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Tuesday , 18, October 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 5 CommentsI vaguely remember a sitcom called Perfect Strangers when I was young. I remember enjoying it, but it either must not have aged well or it must have been more or less terrible if you had two digits in your age, because since then, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it. If this seems […]
SUPERVERSIVE: “Futurama” explores the big ideas while avoiding message fiction
Tuesday , 18, October 2016 Fiction, Superversive 7 CommentsThere will be spoilers to endings of episodes. The subject of the post happens not to depend so much on twists, but even so, I recommend watching the show first before reading my review. In any case, all spoilers here on in are unmarked. You’ve been warned. The more I think about it, the more […]