Imperfect, far from being as good as his first two home runs early on, but still don't understand the hate upon its release. I spoke with a half dozen people who normally love these actors and romantic comedies who outright despised this and it baffled me. I like how strange and messy the interactions are - characters often veer from random indecision to ADD-like impulsivity at the drop of a hat - in ways that are strangely relatable. They sometimes…

If someone were to point out my favorite thing(s) to read, even more than a great novel, it would be essays about something that affected them so deeply that they felt compelled to write about it. It can be short, or it can be 20 pages long. A great author of this approach would be Lester Bangs, who wrote beautifully indulgent music reviews in such an intensely personal way that were so resonant, that for the right reader, you might…

Big turnaround here! It took me a 2nd viewing to finally declare this is as a masterpiece of subtle spikes of paranoia, exploring the mystery at the heart of a hard crime, be it personal or political or both. My initial review is that this film is a meandering mess, but it's not. There are detours that add up to the overall idea that I THINK both PTA and Pynchon share: narratives don't matter in this cluttered cultural landscape, it's…