the st. louis rams as a microcosm of the nfl

Yes, a rare sports piece from yours truly. For Deadspin, I wrote an NFL season preview for the St. Louis Rams. Kinda. I mostly used the team as a springboard to talk about what I love (and don't love) about the National Football League. The Deadspin readers were not pleased.

hearting justin timberlake

It's no secret that I'm quite fond of the solo career of Mr. Justin Timberlake. I continue with the kind words in my latest Consumables column. I also ponder Paris Hilton and Spike Lee. (Now there's a combo.)

hendrik hertzberg nails bush again

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg has so continually criticized the Bush administration's failures in Iraq and elsewhere that it's easy to take his always-fine commentary for granted. But this week's piece on the growing American consensus against the war is one of his very best, as he coldly dissects the litany of recent disappointments ...

The war's sole real gain -- the overthrow of the murderous Saddam Hussein regime -- is mocked by the chaos and suffering that have overwhelmed millions of Iraqis, whose country is again a republic of fear. The concrete losses are horrific: nearly three thousand American and "coalition" troops killed; thousands more maimed; scores of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; a third of a trillion dollars burned through. So are the less tangible ones: the unprecedented levels of anti-Americanism throughout the Muslim world and Europe; the self-inflicted loss of America's moral prestige; the neglect of real nuclear dangers, in Iran and North Korea, while chimeras were chased in Iraq. The neoconservative project of a friendly, democratic Middle East, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, is worse than a charred ruin -- it is a flaming inferno.

Just about covers it, huh? Of all the insightful points Hertzberg makes, "the self-inflicted loss of America's moral prestige" probably angers me the most -- the idea that we now live in a country that has (in the eyes of the rest of the world) forfeited its reputation for honorable, virtuous behavior is going to be a bitter pill we'll be swallowing for a long time to come, I fear.

snakes on a plane

The wait is over: Snakes on a Plane is finally here. It's no work of art, but for a late-summer B-movie, it has a whole lot of charm.

seeing barry lyndon on the big screen

The Academy is hosting a screening of Stanley Kubrick's underrated Barry Lyndon on Monday, August 21. If you've never seen it -- or only seen it at home -- now's your chance. Even better: Ryan O'Neal might be there, too.

writing pad

I'll be teaching a one-day seminar in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 14 as part of the Writing Pad. The topic? The art of reviewing. It'll be fun, I swear -- and the food should be quite tasty.

please see the house of sand

It's an amazing film. If that doesn't sway you, my latest Consumables column also covers Miami Vice, Scoop, and Band of Horses.

there are worse things than mel gibson...

... like our current president, for instance.

will ferrell

The former Saturday Night Live comedian is pretty funny in his new film, Talladega Nights. If that's not enough to entice you, Sacha Baron Cohen is also in it.

the motel

Writer-director Michael Kang's debut feature, about a young boy stuck working in his mom's dingy motel, might sound dull, but it's a quietly moving coming-of-age story. On the other side of the quality spectrum, there's Another Gay Movie.

little miss sunshine

Steve Carell is quite good in this comedy-drama. Also in Consumables, I discuss A Scanner Darkly, Thom Yorke's The Eraser, and that song about booties that's all over the radio.

the endless misery in the middle east

Remember how those who opposed the Iraq War said we shouldn't overextend our military on the off-chance that, who knows, we might need our troops for a more pressing problem somewhere else? The difficulties with North Korea and Iran have only strengthened those arguments, and, as Rosa Brooks points out in a sharply worded piece in the Los Angeles Times, the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is simply the latest evidence of the error in the Bush Administration's thinking.

metallica: "enter sandman"

Although my article profiling the making of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" ran in Blender a year ago, the piece is just now becoming available online. Lots of fond memories rush through my head as I re-read this piece; thanks again to Lars Ulrich, who was a terrific interview. Enjoy.

people like johnny depp as a pirate

The Pirates of the Caribbean sequel is making a ton of dough, but isn't so good. Elsewhere in my Consumables column, I tackle Superman Returns, the Dixie Chicks, the Arctic Monkeys and other fun entertainment items.

you, me and dupree

I thought Wedding Crashers was a pretty smart "new dude" comedy, but You, Me and Dupree demonstrates that the genre is far from foolproof.

baffled by the searchers

In honor of its 50th anniversary, John Ford's The Searchers has been re-released on DVD. Here in Los Angeles, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences screened a new print to commemorate the occasion, which I attended. I'd seen the film several years ago, but hadn't quite understood some critics and filmmakers' adoration for this square and disjointed Western. Despite the gorgeous new print, I remained very much in the dark.

I was, therefore, very relieved to find Stephen Metcalf's recent piece which does a great job dissecting both the flaws of The Searchers and the tangled rationale for its fans' enthusiasm. It can be difficult to trash a consensus masterwork without sounding foolish or petty, but Metcalf smartly sidesteps such pitfalls. His opener says it all…

The Searchers, John Ford's epic 1956 Western, is a film geek's paradise: It is preposterous in its plotting, spasmodic in its pacing, unfunny in its hijinks, bipolar in its politics, alternately sodden and convulsive in its acting, not to mention boring.

wishing roger ebert well

It's easy to make potshots at Roger Ebert because of his popularity and visibility as a film critic, but there can be no question that for a lot of young filmgoers he was the person who first introduced us to the great movies that got us hooked for life.

Considering his recent health problems, I thought back to this revealing portrait of Ebert's home life from The New York Times. You get a sense of a fully lived life awash in the art and the people who matter most to him. Frankly, it sounds as close to Heaven as someone in our business can hope to achieve.

if only gay sex caused global warming

That's the provocative headline to Daniel Gilbert's great op-ed about people's willingness to ignore a problem that doesn't seem to be affecting them directly and immediately. In other words, global warming might be real but nobody cares, while flag-burning drives everyone into a tizzy despite its rather low danger factor.

'The Road to Guantanamo'

The controversial film, along with Cars, A Prairie Home Companion, and Ghostface Killah's Fishscale, is reviewed in my latest Consumables column.

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