Friday Fun Video: How To Dance To Daft Punk

Daft Punk + Soul Train = Unexpected Awesomeness!

Movie Review: "Gangster Squad" (2013)

LA Inconsequential

Whether or not you like this movie depends heavily on your expectations.  If you're looking for actual, serious (neo-)noir or mob action, you won't find it.  If you want a bit of colorfully pulpy disposable genre entertainment dolled up as a vintage fashion show with shootouts, then you just might have come to the right place.

Movie Trailer: "The Artist" and Sheer Cinematic Splendor

Old school movie magic done in the here and now.  This French flick seems destined for Oscar glory!

Couch Potato Chronicles: Come Fly With Me

I hadn't intended to check out the new TV show "Pan Am" tonight, but this review makes me think, hm, maybe I should!

Like "Mad Men," "Pan Am" is about glamour, but unlike "Mad Men" there's no critique attached: This is not a story of manufactured desire and empty illusions. The glamour in "Pan Am" may indeed be manufactured — doubly manufactured, given the re-created places and planes — but it's not empty: The show says, yes, this is as good as it looks, and it looks very good — though anyone who has flown anywhere in the last, oh, 30 years, may find it difficult to believe, or to remember, that air travel ever was this gracious, customer-friendly or fun. (We are assured, by network communiques, and a little extra research, that it was.)

Air travel used to be fun, exciting, and even glamorous?  Golly!  I do recall older people saying that back in the day, people would dress up to go to the airport.  Ah, travel before the TSA!  Oh, and the show has Michael Moseley too -- so adorable in the now-(sadly)-defunct show "Kings."

The Margaret Thatcher-Themed London Nightclub

Welcome to Maggie's!   Here's the official website.  I hope this drives leftists crazy as much as leftist Mao- or Che-themed clubs drive me crazy.  "The lady's not for turning ... !"

Monday Therapy: Epic Office Post-It War

Behold the Great French Post-It War of 2011 between two companies!  Go, look, and marvel.  Here's the story also as reported in a French newspaper -- Vive la guerre des Post-It!

Movie Review: The Cine-Sib and MM Take On "Tron" and "Tron: Legacy"

I had initially reviewed "Tron: Legacy" here.  I had gone to see it opening weekend without the Cine-Sib, but over the holidays he really wanted to see it, so I went with him.  There was one big difference the second time around: he and I went to see it in 3D IMAX on a proper (i.e., 70-foot-high) IMAX movie screen (not a fake IMAX -- as the Cine-Sib and I call it, a "faux-MAX").  I liked the flick a lot better on the massive screen since then it really was the triumph of style over substance, but I'm thinking that I liked it better too for the company -- the Cine-Sib and our friends!  I'll give it a C+ the second time around while knowing full well this is a function of the IMAX.  Anyway, on to the Cinema-Mad Sibling's review!

Using Vintage History Books to Teach History Today

Imagine that! Retro chic hits the classroom!

The American Presidents In Song

Since I forgot to post anything about Presidents Day, here is a belated bit of fun. Yes, yes, it's a bit of retro amusement and a bit dated now, but "The Animaniacs" was always great cartoon fun.

Friday Fun Video: "Star Trek" + "The A-Team"

This is awesomely hilarious. Oh, TV pop culture!

Nerd Journal: End-of-School-Semester INSANITY

It is completely out of control here in Nerdworld. There's too much to do and not enough time, and it's basically nerd hell for everybody on campus, undergrads and faculty and grad student peons and oppressed adjuncts and beleaguered lecturers and ALL. Plus, winter is finally here, and the sky is dumping snow everywhere.

I'm up to my eyeballs in work, so that should totally explain why I'm moaning about it on this blog and procrastinating! What the heck, I'll be up all night no matter what happens. Anyway, I thought I'd throw in something fun to share. I give you both a blast from the past and the nerdiest, geekiest TV action hero of all, the fellow who's always made me feel better because he uses his brain to get out of sticky situations -- and once prevented a nuclear meltdown with chocolate. (No, really!) I give you the hero of technophiliacs, nerds, and geeks of a certain age everywhere. I give you the one and only:




RESCUE ME.