"Okay, I wanna see what happens, next week. Go 'La La La', please." Then this happens while I sing the last minute of this with my eyes closed, fingers in ears. It's a little ritual that keeps our family running smoothly. A similar tradition (in tone if not practice) happens at movie theaters. After the Jodeci retreads have played and we've answered the trivia cards, the lights come down, the green rating s ...

Just a quick couple of Netflix recommendations today. Our passions and our professions are to a huge extent what define us. When they're one and the same, however, the overlap can drive us nuts. Artists, politicians, athletes, moguls, yogis. A certain level of passionate obsession isn't healthy in combination with some personality types. As such, so very many chefs are insane or brilliant or a combination o ...

We haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty or Drive. We missed Life of Pi in the theater and probably won't be seeing RIPD when it comes out. Our nights spent in dark rooms with light shining on the big wall and sound coming at us like a tide of rhinos while popcorn and Sour Patch Kids flow freely are limited to PG-13 extravaganzas with some amount of family appeal. Animated movies loom large for us, as do comic book ...

FX is having a grand old time with its original programming. Basic Cable in general is in a golden age of sorts. With Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Hell on Wheels and The Killing, AMC is the current monarch of Basic-Cable Awesome. TNT/USA's approach is stubbornly scattershot: green-light everything and throw it out there, who the hell knows what will work? This has given us greatness in The Close ...

Today, Jane Alice Peters is my favorite actor. I’m a little obsessed with Hollywood name-changers. Archibald Leach, Marion Morrison, Norma Jeane Mortenson and Bernie Schwarz are classic examples of stars who probably wouldn’t have been. Michael Douglas, James Stewart and Albert Einstein were all forced to change their names for even more obvious reasons. To be honest, Jane Alice Peters is a perfectly servic ...

Just a simple series of recommendations, today. Let’s look back at some of the best Boston movies. I find that I can only take so much media speculation at times like these, so it’s useful to take a step back and just breathe until there is more factual information for journalists and news readers to impart. In the meantime, I watch movies. There are ton to choose from, here, since Boston perhaps only trail ...

Think of a movie. This is your favorite movie or the best movie. A classic. It’s a movie you could watch every week for the rest of your life or one you make it a point to watch once a year. Maybe it’s a movie you saw just the one time twenty years ago and it’s stuck with you ever since, like this picture of Gary Busey. You can’t just unsee that; it’s there in your head forever. This movie I’m talking about ...

“I hate actors.” On the written page, that’s a fun little line. It’s the dying expression of a black-hat villain in a forgettable 80s comedy in the style of The Prince and the Pauper. The movie was kind of terrible. It was non-remade into Dave a few years later. That wasn’t a great movie, either, but it was clearly better than Moon Over Parador. Dave at least had Kevin Kline (NSFW) while he was still funny. ...

I was all set to write a column about remakes and the foolish/justified/entertaining way we prejudge them. I will keep my research and write it when another high-profile remake is set to premiere (shouldn’t have to wait long). But I can’t let the events of this afternoon (Thursday) pass without typing whatever feelings want to escape tonight (also Thursday), as I drink a bit of bourbon and think about the p ...

It’s opening day in Royals Land and optimism couldn’t be higher, which means that I am personally pessimistic. That’s just how I roll. I’m a Royals fan, and kind of live by the motto “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 27 times….” Which is not to say that I’m down on my team, I love all of the players, coaches, fans, Hudlers, even the umpires. I believe that Alex Gordon will get MVP votes. I know that Sal ...

Twenty-two episodes used to be industry standard. A production company (a network, really) would order a pilot to be produced. On the strength of that one hour (or one half-hour), seven episodes would be ordered. Or maybe thirteen. If the pilot showed real promise, maybe a full season would be contracted. Twenty-two episodes and the show would be off and running. Of course, there were exceptions. Cheers reg ...

“I design your eyes.” This line from Blade Runner has floored me for 3 decades. A unique bit of dialogue, that. Difficult to imagine that sentence in any other circumstance. It’s not exactly “show me the money” or even “back off, man, I’m a scientist”. You’ll never see it on a T-shirt, is my point. It’s even possible that the line that follows it is more memorable (certainly more remembered). But it’s those ...

Among other accomplishments of dubious merit, I was once a pretty okay Latin speaker. Good enough to use only that crazy-dead language for an hour or so every day. Catholic School Latin, that is. Of course I was not a very good Catholic Schoolboy. Not a very good Catholic at all, really. To the point where I was once caught cheating on a quiz in Freshman Theology. Why waste time studying for what I didn’t t ...

I’m still deciding what I want this column to be. It’s not movie reviews (I almost wrote “per se” at the end of this sentence, I’m so sorry). I don’t care to spend much time writing about movies or performances I don’t think are brilliant so I’ve tried to keep everything positive. I’ll leave myself open to new work while recommending older stuff, especially what I see as influential or groundbreaking effort ...

I lived in New York for years. Manhattan, Hell’s Kitchen. I could walk everywhere on that island, given a little time, and from March through October I’d walk or run just about everywhere I went. More often than not, I came to find, an idle stroll would take me by Sunshine Cinema or the IFC Center or Angelika. The Film Forum was a regular destination conveniently near my favorite pizza place, now unfortunat ...

I try to keep this column positive. Why bother telling you what not to watch, when there’s such a volume of terrific work out there? I could write a column every day about my favorite movie and never once repeat myself. I could never choose just one favorite. Of anything. Movies, actors, books, cars, Royals, beers and especially foods, I could never pick a single favorite and stick to it. When I was in high ...

Kevin Bacon was in Footloose with the late Chris Penn who played Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs with Harvey Keitel whose best work was in Mean Streets by Scorsese while his best movie was maybe The King of Comedy with a terrific performance by Jerry Lewis who did a stellar guest-spot on Mad About You like Tim Conway did a few years after he was so good in the awful Private Eyes with Don Knotts who absolut ...

My brother and I argue a lot. It’s a big part of our dynamic and we wouldn’t be the brothers we are if we peacefully coexisted any more than we do. I’m there for him for the big stuff if he needs it and I know he’s there for me. Brotherly love means not having to get along, am I right, Eagles fans? Anyway, he never cared much about sports and we don’t listen to any of the same music but we both love movies. ...

Winter is coming. Or, more accurately, it's here. Although there were no major power outages reported, the weather affected every avenue of commerce, industry, and education from Thursday into Sunday. Grocers were short on supply. Schools closed. Businesses closed. And with every passing hour, God's vengeance rained in the form of gentle, white, frozen flakes of wrath. For those of you who were comatose the ...

I know a pretty famous bassist who spends most of his year running his air-conditioning company in Florida. He’s aware that if he stops wanting to spread his legs, cock his hip, bang his head and play bass (or if people stop wanting to pay to watch him do that), he will always have work providing cool air in a sticky southern state. That’s horse-sense, says I. And it’s got to be a similar line of reasoning ...