Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Category: Hype

  • The Harry Potter Book Series

    I read* the Harry Potter books this summer. Harry Potter fans and superfans, if there’s something I’m missing or being unfair about, let me know. *Note: For those with strong opinions about that word, I’ll point out I actually books-on-taped it during hiking trips. I’d say it’s 85-90% of the experience of actually reading it. […]

  • Retro Review: The Current TV Landscape (The Office, Scrubs, and the Ghost of Arrested Development) – Part 1

    With the fourth season of Arrested Development premiering in a few short hours on Netflix, I figured this would be a good time to re-post something I wrote shortly after its cancellation (way back in 2006) where I explained I was on-board with the show ending permanently. Part 1 of 3 With the all-but cancellation […]

  • The Morgan Freeman Presidential Saga Trilogy: Olympus Has Fallen/Deep Impact/Oblivion

    When Return of The Jedi came out in 1983, nobody expected to wait 16 years for another Star Wars movie to poorly detail what life was like a couple dozen years before the Second Death Star blew up. If the announcement of the prequels to these years-old films was a geek shot-heard-round-the-world, then what 2013 […]

  • The Muppets

    The Muppets have always been a big inspiration to me. I grew up watching reruns of The Muppet Show, the 9 episodes of The Jim Henson Hour that aired before it was cancelled, the movies, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and countless other productions. Muppet Christmas Carol is one of my favorite movies ever, […]

  • The LOST Finale as a Meta-Metaphor for the Death of a Series

    I wonder if the “Man of Science/Man of Faith” argument could be extrapolated to refer to the skeptics vs. those who had faith in the writers. “Lost” (pun intended) in the hubbub of last night’s “polar”-izing finale, buried beneath the mystical corks, and cliffhanger fights; airplane escapes and journeys into the afterlife together, is a […]

  • “Reimaginator” – Rock Sugar

    What happens when Metallica and Journey get put in a blender, with a little Madonna for consistency? “Rock Sugar” happens. You come across a lot of Mash-Ups on the internet. It seems like the cool, gimmicky musical viral video thing to do these days, and a lot of it is because the formula is so […]

  • Urgent Warning Review: The Last Templar

    Later tonight, NBC will be showing the second half of the two part “The Last Templar” mini-series. DO NOT WATCH THIS. It’s rare that I feel tasked to present my opinion as a public warning, but it is entirely, absolutely necessary in this case. I’m not proud of myself, but I fell for the “well, […]

  • Southland Tales

    Silent Bob or ZZ Top Member? You be the judge. Is it possible to make a movie that is at once pretentious, derivative, completely incomprehensible, insanely long, outrageous just for the sake of it, tonally off-balance, with tons of distractingly recognizeable actors, and somehow surprisingly engrossing? Honestly, Southland Tales lives up to its negative hype. […]

  • Half Inventing Stuff Part 3, or Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something Part 3

    The Bar-B-Fume bottle design and logo from an infomercial I did as a class project in 2002. Graphics designed by Rob Edwards. So back in 1998, I had an English oral presentation to do in which I’d be selling a made-up product. After racking my brain for hours, my thought process went as follows: “What […]

  • Leaking a Fake Version of Your New Album on the Internet (with actual fake songs)

    Ben Folds leaked a fake version of his new album “Way to Normal” on the internet, with six songs he recorded in eight hours, and three versions of songs that are actually going to appear on the album. Four stars.