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Dan Carlson
Los Angeles, California

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of certain TV shows — for starters, "The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April Is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," "Look Who's Stalking," "The Garage Door," "Charlie Gets Crippled," "Wind Sprints," and "Corner Boys" — you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings, or at any rate a heartfelt attempt to interpret them. I guess I was made to be a film critic.

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April 6, 2007

Welcome. Take Your Shoes Off And Get Comfortable.

By Dan Carlson

open1.jpg

So, this is the new place.

It looks a lot like the old place, and that's on purpose, since I was partial to the old place's layout, look, feel, and all that. But this place is a whole lot better: For starters, there's the banner at the top, whipped up by those whose Photoshop skills far outstrip mine (which is pretty easy to do, but still, it's a damn nice banner). The banner might periodically change, too; any suggestions of skilled, balding actors you'd like to see make the rotation are welcome, assuming I remember to implement them. Also, you should know that some areas are still under construction and likely to undergo some tweaking in the next few days and weeks, so don't be alarmed. All part of the process.

Another also: If the photos in the banner appear cut off, or you can't read the entire title, try manually resizing your browser or upping the resolution on your monitor. (For my parents, whose computer is now the electronic equivalent of the large-print shelf at the library, the headline says "Slowly Going Bald," and is laid over a series of photos of balding actors, capped off by yours truly [though I'm obviously not an actor, just balding].)

For instance: I've broadened the categories on the left-hand side, mainly the TV stuff, so all of you who check back everyday with breathless anticipation to see what new wisdom I've shared about the PCHers or Cylon mythology can help yourself to the archives. You're very welcome.

What else, what else. ... Oh yeah: I expect there to be a learning period while this new blog and I get to know each other, learn each other's likes and dislikes, figure out how far I can go before she says the safe word, make up, etc. But I figured out the old blog after a while, and I'm sure I can make myself at home here without too much difficulty. In the meantime, though, there might be a couple lurches or shimmies along the way; take those in stride, and we should be just fine.

So come on in. And try not to break stuff.

Comments: 8

Kevin Longrie

I like it. *bookmark.

Housewarming gift: http://xkcd.com/c239.html

Ah, the place looks cozy.

This is snazzy. Very similar, but also improved -- a nice balance of old and new. Congrats on your new digs.

Red

I clicked over her from Pajiba, I like your blog! I just have to say, how about William Hurt and/or Ed Harris for balding actors on the banner?

red

It looks like my comment got deleted! I came over here from Pajiba - you should add Ed Harris and William Hurt to the banner.

Love the banner. Bravo.

LabiaMonger666

These are for BALDING actors, NOT BALD actors...William Hurt and Ed Harris are fully bald! Also, actors with full heads of hair who shave it for a part DO NOT count! (i.e. Colin Farrell, Natalie Portman, etc.) My own suggestion? Jack Nicholson, of course! He still has something left, barely...see The Departed.

LabiaMonger666

ALSO...since Nicholas Cage is included in the banner above, I assume that balding actors who have had hair plugs are included? That means you'd have to include Matthew MacConaughy and Jamie Foxx, among many, many others. Also, what about balding actors who wear rugs onscreen and/or offscreen, like Sean Connery, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, etc.???

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The Lines

The Quotes

"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael

"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut

"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04

"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid

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the wisdom

Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton

We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.
— Stephen King

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
Ask the Dust, John Fante