I'm Holding Out For Stephen Colbert's Examination Of Wittgenstein
I love it when Amazon's brain gets fried and suggests things based on misinterpretations, misspellings, and homophones.
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Dan Carlson
Los Angeles, California
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. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. 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 a few TV shows ("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," and "Look Who's Stalking," for starters), 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. I guess I was made to be a film critic.
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the politics
The Alumni
Books Archives
April 1, 2008
March 12, 2008
All My Romantic Stories Are A Scrambled Version Of That First One
Over at Pajiba, I've got a review of Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, an essay collection that's definitely worth picking up.
March 3, 2008
Here I Am, Turn The Page
Things are now up and running over at Titlepage, a site dedicated to "passionate conversations about books." Just going there will make you smarter, and once you're there you can sign up to receive updates about the show. There's also Loud, Please, the site's blog. Really, you should stop reading this and go check it out already.
February 12, 2008
The Turtle Definitely Can't Help You Now
Stephen King's latest, Duma Key, is one big steaming pile of letdown.
December 30, 2007
Special Topics in Calamity Physics: A Chronological Book Review
interesting
mysterious
maybe a little pretentious
intelligent
slower
slower
slow
she should've hired a more aggressive editor
slow
slow
boring
damn it what's with the similes
quicker now
intriguing
better
really good
really good
well done
back to slow
still a little slow
okay, back to good
finally good, just took an inexcusably long time to get there
May 16, 2007
Conspicuous Consumption Meets Literacy
I know I'm slightly late with this, and that in the 24 hours since it's gone up the original post has received something like ~400 comments, which is insane/amazing, but over at Pajiba we're taking votes on your favorite novels of the past 15 years. Why the past 15 years? Because it's our game, and those are the rules. The goal is to come up with a list of 5-6 books people would most like to see discussed on the site, meaning we'll actually have to read them and then talk about them, so try not assign us anything too horrible. It's tough to limit myself to five, but the timeliness factor helped a little. Here's what I came up with:
1. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
3. Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Memory of Running, Ron McLarty
5. The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
I know, I'm like a giant walking stereotype of modern twentysomething reading habits. Anyway, we're taking votes for the rest of the week, so feel free to post your own list. I think the results, once tallied, will be pretty interesting.
the post
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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
Current Reading
In Rotation
the humor
the screens
- Pajiba
- HSX
- IMDb
- MovieWeb
- Box Office Mojo
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- Dave Kehr
- AllMovie
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- Austin Movie Blog
- The Screengrab
- GreenCine Daily
- FirstShowing
- Fimoculous
- Chicago Reader: On Film
- Sunset Gun
- Bordwell and Thompson
the tube
The Plugs
- The Sis
- The Oldest Guy I Know
- Curious America
- This Guy Borrowed My Dave Shirt
- Historian Emeritus
- Never Met This Guy
- Steve Holt!
- Man vs. Clown!
- Susan the Canadian
- RozieD
- J. Scott
- Kendall-Ball
- Geoff Klock
- Bells On
- A Special Way of Being Afraid
- Down in Texas
- One More Curious Mile
- Jennifer, Who's From Weatherford, And Now Lives In Virginia
- They Call The Wind Jehiah
- Bad Movie Club
- Girish
- Tom The Dog's You Know What I Like?
- Brady Lane
- My Best Friend's Girl
- Mimi in NY
- My Experiments
- Miles To Go ...
- litelysalted
- Mark Wiebe
- Laugh It Up, Fuzzball
- Hispanic! at the Disco
- I Love You in the Face
- Edward Copeland on Film
- Luke Reeves' Blahg
- Wine Upon the Lips
- Beckylooo's TV in the Woods
- Phillip's Phlegm at Eleven
- Tidmore
Recent Posts
- I'm Holding Out For Stephen Colbert's Examination Of Wittgenstein
- All My Romantic Stories Are A Scrambled Version Of That First One
- Here I Am, Turn The Page
- The Turtle Definitely Can't Help You Now
- Special Topics in Calamity Physics: A Chronological Book Review
- Conspicuous Consumption Meets Literacy
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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
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