How Long Can You Clap For Freedom?

In lieu of Memorial Day I stumbled across a game that stirred my American patriotism unlike any that I had come across before. To call it a game, however, might be a stretch of the definition. Americlap, by Chris Bulch,…

A Million Ways to Die in the West: A History of Western Comedies

The western genre is almost as old as movies themselves, gunslingers riding through a town in a blaze of glory, bar room brawls, and steely eyed duels across dusty streets. Silent films depicted the tumbleweed revolution in the early years…

TV Review: AMC’s Mad Men 7×7, “Waterloo”

“She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She was an astronaut.” – Bertram Cooper (d. 1969) There is something to be said for a man that came from an older…

TV Review: The Normal Heart

Ryan Murphy’s The Normal Heart isn’t without fault-there are numerous and wide ranging flaws-but throughout the rubble and the chaotic directing styles there are phenomenal performances to behold as well as a story that is as deftly written as it is gut wrenching. With a…

Book Review: Curses and Smoke by Vicky Shecter

Let’s all be honest here. There’s something bewitching about historical tragedies- from Pompeii to the Titanic, “natural” disasters simply cannot be matched. I was initially reluctant to pick up Curses and Smoke, for I questioned whether or not Pompeii could…

Book Review: Significance by Shelly Crane

“I saw something in you that I couldn’t live without. I chose you, inside of me, and you chose me. It’s not one sided, it only works when both people choose the other. You are perfect for me in every…

TV Review: Awkward. 4×06-“Crowning Moments”

“He’s perfect, he’s an adult,” Jenna opens the episode, making goo-goo eyes at her new “college” beau. I still think he looks like a tenured professor rather than a student. Seriously though, why are we calling college kids adults? That’s…