Dime Store Riot

Green Frontier ( Frontera Verde ) is a Netflix limited-series from Colombia and it’s the metaphysical crime thriller I’ve always wanted: Helena Poveda, a young Bogotá-based detective, travels deep into the Amazon, on the border between Brazil and Colombia, to investigate a series of bizarre murders. Her investigation leads her into the heart of the jungle where she discovers a mysterious indigenous tribe with an extraordinary secret that they will go to great lengths to protect. If this sounds remotely in your ballpark, give it a watch, because it’s very good: beautifully shot, well-acted, the pacing is on-point, there are some great twists, it’s topical without being preachy and it’s spiritual but completely approachable. I really hope Netflix funds something else from these filmmakers.

I know it’s already been renewed for a second season, but unless they change showrunners and get a new writing team that learns from their mistakes, I will be surprised if Carnival Row makes it a third. Spoilers * * * * *  This is a show I wanted to like. This is a show I should like. One part fantasy, one part Victorian era murder mystery, one part political allegory should all be up my alley. Plus, Amazon obviously spent a ton of money on it, so everything looks great. But I didn't. I pretty much hated it. Here’s the problems: * From the trailer and the premise, you think this will be exciting. It’s not. Even though it’s only 8 episodes, the whole thing is a tedious slog that had me watching the clock. Fantasy should always feel otherworldly and fantastical. This show gets too bogged down in the grim and the grime. So the whole thing just feels like depressing work and becomes aching dull. * Somehow the world-building manages to be both complex and yet un

I watched Witness last night and I haven’t seen the film in forever. I was struck by how good it was, but I was also struck by several other things. First, how the film could never be made now and if it were, Hollywood would screw it up completely. Second, I was struck by how it manages to effectively be so many things at once—a fish-out of water story, a romance, and also a thriller (a pretty good thriller actually despite all the plot turns being completely familiar). It’s just gorgeous to look at—the opening alone is mesmerizing. It’s well acted (I think it’s Ford’s best acting—seriously watch everything he manages to convey with just expressions in the dancing scene with Kelly McGillis). The showdown at the end is so well done too, and manages a couple of things you don’t see nearly enough in gun battles. But I was also struck by how it was an adult movie—not an X-rated film or a film with tons of sex—but a movie about adults staring adults (a child may be the witness to

Alone most days in the day job's office. Now that classes have started, I have to have the door shut or students come in constantly with demands. So I tend to have a lot of music playing in the background while I work. Today, I'm on a Russian/Soviet Folk-Punk kick. Here's Konstantin Stupin singing a song called "Bushy Tail Fox"

Watched Alien Nation last night. Haven't seen the film in forever. Except for the makeup, it holds up very well. Such a smart, fun idea with gobs of potential. Watching it I was thinking, this is something that can be rebooted pretty easily...but then I thought, they'd only screw it up and low and behold turns out I was right. A quick Google search shows that Fox had a reboot in the works but Disney quashed it. And I'm glad they did, because it was absolutely nothing like the original film. It wasn't a buddy cop movie and it was set in Arkansas. Jesus Christ, Hollywood is doomed.

Finally got around to watching Dead to Me on Netflix. It’s beautifully written and well acted black comedy. It’s that right dramatic mix of sweet and sad and funny. Also, as a grown man over the age of 40, it’s refreshing to watch something with grown women over the age of 40, grown women allowed to be messy and complicated and lonely and angry and authentic and just, you know, be their actual age without having to pretend to be younger or forced to put their career on hold until they can play grandmothers as bit parts. And the real kicker is, both Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini kill it in their roles.

So after finishing the third season of Stranger Things , I’ve been thinking about Season Four—  Hopper is the American . Grigori, the Russian Terminator, refers to Hopper repeatedly as "the American." Nameless Soviet scientists enter the room before the explosion. The camera cuts away from Hopper but shows us the scientists going splat. When Joyce and Murray enter the room, the scientist splat is there but the grating where Hopper was standing is clean. Using the song "Heroes," I think, is another clue. That song played in the first season when we thought Will was dead. The last clue comes from the message you can hear if you dial Murray’s phone number (618-625-8313). The answering machine message is for Joyce and says they need to talk because he has news. (I think he’s been trying to track down Hopper).  Kamchatka Kamchatka as the location of the Soviet base is significant. It’s an isolated peninsula in the Siberian wilderness—but close enough

The last episode of Stranger Things S3 punched me in the gut with the feels and I totally teared up. Especially Hop's note: "The hurt is good. It means you're out of that cave..." I'm working on a long ramble about how much I appreciate how the show handles different types of people, but talking with a friend, he and I agreed -- the thing the show does best is empathy. I mean real empathy. No lecturing. No sitting you down and telling you how you're supposed to feel about something, but SHOWING you real empathy in action.

When I first started Stranger Things, I would have never believed Steve would be one of my favorite characters...

So Chuckie Schumer has asked for a probe into FaceApp.  Sigh... I'm actually laughing as I write this because I called it. Literally called it. FaceApp is not stealing your photos and sending them to Russia.  It doesn't ask for any other permissions than any other app that does anything with your photos and/or shares them on social media-- that's the only way for something like that to work . (Don't believe me? Look at the terms for every other app you're using.) The company has been around for a while. FaceApp has been around for a while. The only photos the app actually accesses are the ones you select and it gets uploaded to the cloud. The user who started this whole allegation on Twitter (that the app was uploading all their photos to their servers--deleted those tweets when he realized he was WRONG).  A couple of days ago I noticed the first "security concerns news story" from big media. All the stories were structured and written the

I like the Harry Potter series, but, man, those Cormoran Strike books just sound terrible... I picked one up at the library book sale yesterday and thumbed through it, reading random bits, and yeah... Also, Cormoran Strike is dumb name for a non-Potterverse character.

Couple of days before Season 3 dropped, I started a rewatch of Stranger Things from the beginning. In no particular order, couple of things struck me about the show in general during this rewatch and starting Season 3: I love Sheriff Hopper. I really do. I like how human he feels. How honest and real he is. How he’s not perfect--he's struggling with his past--but he tries to be a good man. The fact that he stress eats is such a nice touch (take note crime writers – people deal with stress other ways than the bottle in the desk drawer, it’s not 1950 anymore). And little things like him shaving his beard but keeping his mustache and then seeing him watching Magnum, PI. Those are things so many writers and so many shows miss out on. Those make a character real. Joyce is one of Winona Ryder’s best performances. And maybe it’s because she was the first actress I ever had a crush on (Lydia in Beetlejuice ), but even as a poor and tired single mom—she’s still hot. I know it’s

So The Last Czars on Netflix...is a hot mess. The studio behind it aimed to create a new genre: what they call "the megadoc.” A high end documentary with taking heads and an action-driven drama. Kind of a good idea, right? Imagine watching a premium cable period drama that cut to people explaining things. But it just doesn’t work. It’s weird and it’s jarring and the cuts between scripted actors, talking heads, and real-life footage break your attention. You combine that with random modern phraseology that’ll pop up in the re-enactments and random sexy bits for no good reason and the whole thing becomes kind of weird and off-putting and working against itself—here’s a sex scene with the Czar and his wife aaand--cut to a talking head telling you about poor economic conditions. You can't have Lenin's tomb BEFORE he's dead. The show is full of all sorts of little errors and just kind of lazy sloppiness (see the pic on the right for what I'm talking

If you don’t mind subtitles, I recommend the Russian historical crime-drama Fartsa (go ahead and laugh, it’s a funny name but it's a slang term that developed from the English phrase "for sale") on Netflix. It's set in the Soviet Union in 1961. It follows four young friends who get involved in “fartsovka” to help their friend who owes a large gambling debt. Farsovka was the secondary black market economy that centered on foreign goods (especially clothes you could sell to stilyagi—think hipster) and the difference in currency exchange rates (the official one versus the black market one). It’s well acted. Well written. Beautifully shot. Character driven—the friends struggle to deal with normal problems like love and happiness while navigating a criminal underworld. And it gives you a peek into what normal life was like in the Soviet Union. Plus, there’s a lot of fun rock and jazz music you’ve never heard.

If there were a publisher who was interested in follow-ups to Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats (which I still move copies of), there are two other anthologies I have planned in my head. The first would be crime stories about Teddy Boys (picture 1) and the second would be crime stories about Soviet stilyagi (picture 2). Or maybe I should just get my act together and crowdfund them...

I’m no stranger to violence. As I’ve written before, my brother was violently mentally ill. I saw him repeatedly fight with cops until it reached the point where if he were reported jaywalking, four squad cars would arrive, two-men to a car. I saw him fight with my other brother repeatedly; once when my mother tried to break it up, he threw her through the closet doors. I saw him break my father’s nose and ribs with a one-two combination. I saw him strangle our other brother’s friend to the point where his face started changing colors (my mom broke that up to). I’m not a pacifist. In middle school, a high school kid wouldn’t stop hitting me in the back of the head so I stood up and punched him in the mouth—got kicked off the bus for three days (but the high school kid never bothered me after that). In high school, I got barred from Arby’s when, again, an older kid wouldn’t leave me alone so I pelted him in the face with my philly beef n’ swiss and then tossed him over a table.

So I’m gonna make an election prediction that probably isn’t going to go over very well (and it’s one I’ve been saying in private for a while to the people I can legitimately talk politics with). And that’s okay, I’m used to it. All the other election predictions I’ve made, despite coming true, haven’t gone over well either. First, since nuance is basically dead and everyone seems to act like you’re the enemy if you don’t agree with them 100%, let me say something. I don’t like Trump. I’m not a Trump supporter. Didn’t vote for Trump last time. (Didn't vote for Hillary either). And I won’t vote for him this time. But—Trump will have two terms. Two terms. For real. Prepare yourself if you don’t like the man, because he will have two terms. The Democrats learned nothing during the last election. Nothing. They’ve shown this time and time again. The people who like Trump, still like Trump. The people who hate Trump still hate Trump. And most of the liberal Democratic

The Miley Cyrus episode of Black Mirror is better than the stupid review from critics: “Cutsey?” “Cartoonish?” “A mediocre disillusioned-pop-star story fused with a mediocre awkward teen story.” Hmmm…that almost sounds like, gee, I don’t know? Like a live-action Disney channel show? Or, golly, I don’t know, maybe a really bad direct-to-dvd Disney channel live-action movie designed to milk tween’s parents of money? You know, like something that someone like Miley Cyrus would have done when she was a prisoner of Hannah Montana and her father’s control? Hey, Miley Cyrus is in this episode playing someone who...WAIT A MINUTE! That couldn’t have been, I don’t know, maybe part of the point of the episode could it? Naw…

The first two seasons of Outlander are now available on Netflix in the US. If you haven't watched it, check it out...it's so much better than it has any right to be. There's romance, there's drama, there's fighting and battle scenes, there's fascinating historical stuff, and there's time travel. It's well acted and beautifully shot.

"I rebel, therefore, I exist" -- Albert Camus

Smedley Butler fought in a whole host of military actions and wars. Most of them you’ve probably never of: Philippines, China, Haiti, Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. When he retired from the US Marine Corps, he retired with the highest possible rank then awarded. At the time of his death, he was the most decorated Marine in history. To this day, he remains one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. His men called him Old Gimlet Eye after he contracted a tropical fever that left his eyes bloodshot while fighting in Honduras. His tattoo was legendary (an eagle, globe, and anchor piece that started at the bottom of his throat and ended at his waist). At the bequest of the mayor of Philadelphia, President Calvin Coolidge awarded Butler s