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REVIEW: Plot over everything else?
I’ve recently watched two television adaptations that created a pair of polarizing responses. On the positive side we have HBO’s Watchmen. On the negative side is Netflix’s The Witcher. Both series have a respected genre pedigree: one being among the great graphic novels of our time; the other is a series with a cult following…
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REVIEW: Climax (directed by Gasper Noé)
The films of Gasper Noé typically leave me cold. I watch them, I recognize that a director of great skill has created the movie, but the content leaves me unmoved. I’m by no means a Noé connoisseur. He’s produced a lot of work, but I have seen four of his films now: Irrévisible, Enter the…
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REVIEW: Back to Nebraska, back to jamming to Kay Hanley
Random fact: the most popular blog post on this site is my love letter to the alt-rock women of the 1990s: https://jason-sizemore.com/2014/05/30/letters-to-cleo-kay-hanley-and-ben-wyatt/ The highlight of that post was the confession that I harbored an innocent crush on the lead singer of Letter’s to Cleo. I mean, I still do, but I’m happy to jam to…
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REVIEW: The Detour
The Detour is a road trip comedy series on TBS written by the husband/wife team of Jason Jones and Samantha Bee and starring Natalie Zea and Jason Jones. The second season starts soon, which makes now a great time to binge the 10-episode first season! The show flew under my radar. When it popped up…
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REVIEW: The Young Pope wants your Cherry Coke Zero
I had a fevered dream this past weekend. In this dream, the Pope climbed from under a mountain of babies. He showered and I saw his buttocks. A man with a grotesque mole was put in his place. I learned that Cherry Coke Zero is the breakfast of champions. And all of this madness? It…
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REVIEW: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Many followers of this blog are probably familiar with A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. It made several 2015 year’s best lists and won the Stoker Award for best novel. Rightfully so because it is an excellent book. Merry Barrett, our narrator, recounts her experiences as a child when her sister Marjorie becomes…
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REVIEW: The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas
It probably should come as no surprise that I enjoyed The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas. There are zombies. Gore. Sex. Power tools. I’ve published Nick’s short fiction half a dozen times and a book he wrote about surviving as a writer titled Starve Better. If you’re in the enlightened intersection of readers who have…
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REVIEW: It Follows
Question: What horror film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% and a Metacritic score of 83%? Answer: The creepy and, at times, scary movie It Follows by director David Robert Mitchell. My favorite film review website, The AVClub, gives It Follows a rare score of ‘A’. You might ask…is it really that good? Well…it’s…
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REVIEW: Fallout 4
Despite the mountain of work sitting on my desk (the work resides on my laptop, of course), I’ve lost 40+ hours of my life to a video game. These are precious hours of my mortal coil burned off in the pursuit of experience points and legendary weapons. Damn you, Fallout 4! Reactions to Fallout 4…
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REVIEW: The Human Equations
Dave Creek is a familiar name to fans of Analog Fact and Fiction magazine. Even though I don’t read Analog too often, I’ve noticed his name on the cover of the magazine numerous times. After reading The Human Equations, I can see why he’s a frequent visitor to their pages. Most of the stories in…