Our world today seems fraught with peril: everywhere you look are threats to your safety and well-being. If it’s not the U.S. housing market’s collapse affecting economics worldwide, it’s the failure of Cypriot banking affecting the global economy. If it’s not Iran threatening an attack on Israel, it’s North Korea threatening South Korea (and Japan…
I’m not here to take a stand for or against the MPAA or anything like that—there is chatter enough about that subject on the Internet already. No, what this missive today will discuss is the phenomenon that often occurs in movies ostensibly made for children, or at least families, wherein one or more of the…
It is a painful experience to watch a story come apart. From that moment during the telling of a pointless anecdote when the speaker realizes no laughter is forthcoming, to the most sweeping epic tales that end up cracking apart at their close, a bad ending always leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and…
You know the look well: crazy white hair sticking out in all directions, coke-bottle thick goggles held fast across wildly staring eyes, while thickly gloved hands (black rubber gloves, no doubt) hold aloft a bubbling beaker as the “scientist” shouts: “I’ve done it! I’ve created the world’s first [INSERT WACKY CREATION HERE]!” Or maybe: “Fools!…
Since time immemorial, human beings have been artists. As soon as anything approaching an established society was, well, established, our artistic endeavors began. From the caves of Lascaux to the carvings of the Inuit to the pictographs gracing canyons in the American west, humans have long been creating works of art. And we’ve been stealing…
It is with at least a permissible dash of hubris that the literary and artistic population of any (that is to say, every) generation considers itself on the forefront of something. We are always looking for the pulse, the zeitgeist, the movement; be it an “ism” (say, modernism or futurism, both of which are, ironically,…
First off, let me be clear: we’re talking about crime in literature, on television, in games, etc. That kind of crime. Not like actually getting your car stolen or reading a blotter note about a CPA defrauding a charming little mom-n-pop bakery, for example. Those things don’t seem sexy at all, right? Now, an insanely…
Few historians or art critics will argue with the notion that art culture reflects the culture from which it arises. (Some may claim, often accurately, that art forecasts cultural shifts or upheavals as well, of course.) Take the ever more chilling paintings of Goya as Napoleon’s jackboots ran roughshod over much of Europe in the…
First, let me clarify what I mean when I use the term “antihero” in this piece. (Or should I say qualify? You decide.) I mean not a traditional hero. I mean someone with flaws or with blood on their hands. Or at least dirt. And their motives may be focused rather inward, at least much…
