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This Year.

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This year, I walked away from my day job. It might be the wildest thing I’ve ever done (I’m very boring). It’s hard to overestimate the level of caution with which I approach life. I’m the gunslinger seat, the flosser, flat shoes, better not. A day job was a given; writing was the thing you supported with the thing you did ten, twelve, sixteen hours a day. But as it turns out, if you sleep three or four hours a night for a decade or so, eventually a doctor will tell you to sit down and make some choices. I had a steady job – nothing to do with writing, but it was there. I had no plans, no backups, nothing in the pipeline. That risk assessment was a no-brainer. I walked anyway. And I got fucking lucky. A lot of people took a chance on me in big ways and little ones, and I’ve had some amazing opportunities. I’ve discovered a circadian rhythm that’s better than before but also that no one should tell… Read more »

The Girl Stays in the Picture

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Eight Silent Films and the Women Who Made Them Legendary The silent-movie boom of the early 20th century left an indelible mark on pop culture, and is perhaps the cinema era that cinema loves best. From Singin’ in the Rain to The Artist, Hollywood often returns to those seemingly-halycon days of dashing men who made movies happen, and ingenues they loved. It’s a familiar picture, but it’s missing something. The women of silent film, though often referenced in style, are largely forgotten in their substance: the power they wielded behind the scenes, which was often formidable, and which the studio system of the 1930s couldn’t forget soon enough. But women were the backbone on which Hollywood was built; the biggest screen sirens shaped everything from pop culture to politics, with behind-the-scenes maneuvers that left their on-screen antics in the dust – down to founding studios of their own. Below, eight seminal silent films, and the awesome women behind them. Cleopatra (1917) In an age that favored ingénues, Theda Bara was a femme fatale – by… Read more »

TV Movies and Other Accidental Horrors

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Sometimes I tell friends to watch things that are awful. It’s harder if the only recommendation I have is, “No, you can’t imagine how bad it is until you see it.” It gets more awkward if it’s something I found during one of my down-the-rabbit hole Netflix fugue states, where I snap out of it the next day and realize I’ve watched seven movies, each worse than the last, until I nearly rewatched Blood of Beasts, a “Viking” Beauty and the Beast story where the only part that ever stays with me is where she offers to help her bear-suit captor wash up by pressing a damp washcloth gingerly to his shoulder three times, the end. (Actual scene.) But sometimes a movie just needs to be talked about – say, Dancing at the Harvest Moon. Officially, it’s a movie about a divorcee who returns to her hometown hoping to reconnect with her first love. He’s dead, so instead she restores the dance hall they used to frequent and makes out with his son. (Actual plot.)… Read more »

The Sharknado Drinking Game

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So, everyone experienced Sharknado the first time around, I hope? I know some people didn’t, because they were asleep, or locked in barns by prankster friends, or staying in major hotel chains that don’t even offer SyFy and leave you in the dark for 72 hours. The good news, for those who missed it: Sharknado was so popular that they’re airing it again today at 7pm Eastern! The good news for everyone else: Sharknado is always happening. It has always happened. Look up at the sky. Know that the gathering storm will rain disparate species, spitting them out violently on the streets below. You will look into their eyes. You will see only yourself. This is how it has always been; this is the Sharknado of which none may speak. We probably need a drinking game for this. Or a review. A drinking review. Drink every time: There’s shark POV. This is a story about the sharks, too; displaced, violently disrupted, desperate to get home by sliding through the viscera of those they have torn… Read more »

B-movies/Byzantium

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This week, I had the opportunity to write an editorial essay for Clarkesworld that was meant to be something of a personal take on my approach to movie reviewing, with an undercurrent of, “Because sometimes you like bad movies a lot and you should probably explain that.” I ended up writing a love letter to the wide swath of things that get classified, could be classified, and want to be classified as B-movies, because damn, there is a lot going on under that umbrella. “My Own Private B-Movie” is up now! (And no disrespect to The Warriors, but someday I will write about Streets of Fire, because it deserves something all its own.) And it is super timely, because this weekend I saw Byzantium. Obviously, Neil Jordan is no stranger to bloodsuckers; he directed Interview with the Vampire, which has become the unexpected but indisputable model for urban vampire films in the nearly two decades since its release. The unabashedly over-the-top adaptation of Anne Rice’s already over-the-top novel about a dysfunctional vampire family walked a… Read more »

The Fast and the Musketeer-ious

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fast and the musketerious
“Besides, we are men, and after all, it is our business to risk our lives.” —Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers I can’t believe I’ve seen the whole thing! No, honestly, I can’t believe I’ve seen all the Fast and the Furious movies. (I’ve also seen all the Underworld movies, but that’s an accident for another day.) I’d managed to catch this road-race-turned-heist-serial at home over the years, except Tokyo Drift, which I saw on a plane because it was the only film on the plane. (Never has a movie so loud lulled so many to sleep.) The others, though less grindingly dull, are not paragons of excellence (unless one counts Excellence in Sound, or Excellence in Number of Vehicles, or Excellence in Palming Your Gearshift Like You Don’t Know What That’s Even a Euphemism For, You Just Belong to the Road, Okay?), and yet they keep appearing, because public demand is high enough with every installment that someone looks over a script that includes “He jumps from his vehicle at 100 miles an hour, leaps… Read more »
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