I like Pixar movies. Shocking, right? Pixar falls in the same category as John Green, elevating to a higher plane a genre that I adore but that is often dismissed as immature fun (animated films and YA lit, respectively). Simply, if you’re interested in well-told, mature, compelling stories and you’re interested in animation, then Pixar…
I wish that everyone can be blessed with a band like Relient K in their lives: A band that so closely matches your personality and growth that listening to them sometimes feels like looking into a mirror; a band that feels like it was designed specifically for “you”; a band that you love as much…
Whenever someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I get a little bit embarrassed. “It’s called That Thing You Do! It’s a comedy from 1996,” I say. “Oh. So it’s really funny?” “Yes. Well… I mean… I personally think so. It’s not really a punchline type comedy.” “So it’s more, like, surreal? Physical comedy,…
Wow. It’s hard to believe that the end is in sight. When I launched “Dan’s Top 100 Everything” back in January, I had a vision of something I could whip up in a couple months, with most articles serving as brief summaries. I even stated that I hoped to publish one article in the series…
Every now and then, I’m going to take a break listing my favorite things to talk about something I don’t like: Mumford & Sons are a bland, calculated, passionless, hipster-baiting, inauthentic, and — in general — very unpleasant band. It bothers me that they are championed as paragons of bringing music back to its “roots.”…
I could probably write a whole series about things that I like more in theory than I do in practice in the pop culture world. A few examples: Sara Bareilles, Fountains of Wayne, Hoosiers, the Elder Scrolls series, and Pandora. But the #1 entry on that list might be fantasy books. It’s crazy for me…
It’s holiday season again, which means it’s time for one of my favorite traditions: Watching the 2003 film Love Actually with my wife, pretending not to like it, but actually enjoying myself. A crucial piece of this tradition is spending some time after the viewing breaking down just how ridiculous, creepy, and strange some of the movie’s nine…
To celebrate our fifth birthday, each Earn This contributor is selecting his five favorite things from the past five years.Here are Dan’s picks. 5. Community, Season 1 (2009-10) The #5 spot came down to two seasons of NBC sitcoms that aired during 2009-2010, starting within a week of each other: Parks and Rec, Season 2…
Taylor Swift dropped her much-hyped fifth album, 1989, today, and as one of the millions who professes himself a fan of Tay-Tay, I’ve already made a few listen-throughs. I wanted to share my thoughts here. Let’s start by going back two years. Taylor’s fourth album, Red, put me off a bit when I first heard it. I had…
Oof. That was a slog. HIMYM Season 8 commits many cardinal sins for a sitcom, from forcing a relationship (Robin and Barney), to selling out its characters for cheap jokes (many times; but esp. Barney as a womanizing d-bag), to ridiculous, unbelievable twists (Barney pulling a several month ruse on Robin, then getting engaged to…