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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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« A Stunning Confluence |Main| Review: Hot Rod »

August 1, 2007

Bright And Early For Their Daily Races

By Dan Carlson

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This week's Willamette Week column is about "Mad Men," AMC's lite version of "The Sopranos."

Click here for the column.

Comments: 5

litelysalted

Is that stupid mothereffing Connor I see? Strangely, that kind of attracts and repels me from the show at the same time.

Aug 2, 2007 8:43 AM

Brenda

Aw, I kind of loved Mad Men. I am big on 1950s melodramas, which I imagine to be a bigger inspiration for this show than The Sopranos, so that might be why. It's like if Sirk made a workplace drama.

Aug 2, 2007 10:30 AM

Daniel Carlson

Litelysalted: That is, indeed, Vincent "Connor" Kartheiser. I keep waiting for Holtz to pop up through a portal and snatch him away right as he's hitting on one of the secretaries.

Brenda: Yeah, I don't hate the show, I'm just not sold on it yet. But a Sirk-inspired workplace drama would be great. I imagine there would be a lot of scarves.

Aug 2, 2007 11:48 AM

Bianca Reagan

I don't know this "Connor" you speak of, but Vincent Kartheiser is a major reason I watch Mad Men.

Aug 3, 2007 11:05 AM

Constance

Fucking CONNOR! Gah!! I blame his crappy character for turning Angel into a whiny, 'where the wild things aren't' soap opera.

He looks better in the suit than in his Peter Pan garb though.

Um, so, yeah...cool article:)

Aug 3, 2007 11:34 AM

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