Lying Liars and the Lies They Lie
I’m still ruminating over The Invention of Lying, Ricky Gervais’ new comedy. I saw it last night and it was, um, not quite what I expected. Let me just say this up front: I like Gervais. I think he’s one of the funniest guys in show business. He’s also an outspoken, committed atheist, and Lying […]
The Power of Film
Just ran across an interesting Q&A-style interview with Ken Burns, one of the United States’ best-known documentary filmmakers. He opened himself up to questions from Time magazine readers, and one of them asked what drew him to filmmaking. This is what he said: My mother died when I was 11. Several years afterward, my father […]
Television: A Graying Media?
The Emmys were awarded last night. And, even though I review a lot of TV for Plugged In, I didn’t watch them. I felt a wee bit guilty about it for a while (a television critic really should watch a television show which doles out awards to other television shows, right?), but the show really […]
I Want to Be a Pip
I’ve always liked Gladys Knight. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it’s because her voice is just so cool. Maybe it’s because “Midnight Train to Georgia” is so catchy. Maybe it’s because she, for some reason, has always reminded me of one of my best friends’ moms–the one who always gave me a hug when […]
9 Lives
My review of 9, the Tim Burton-produced animated apocalypse, is now up on the main Plugged In site. The film is more haunting parable than anything else, bolstered by an important cautionary question: With all our techno-gizmos and mechanized whodats, are we getting too smart for our own good? I talk pretty extensively about the […]
And They’ll Know We Are Christians by … What?
I watched a provocative new Christian documentary the other day–Dan Merchant’s Lord Save Us From Your Followers. Clearly, with a title like that, you know this isn’t going to be your standard Fireproof-style Christian flick. No, this is a doc done in the same Michael Moorish vein as Ben Stein’s Expelled and Bill Maher’s Religulous, […]