Alright, we’re back for Round 2 of wondering What The Hell Jay Mathews is trying to say. New readers are highly encouraged, should they have a hankering for snarky criticism of poor logic exhibited in published newspaper columns, to check out this. When I saw that Mr. Mathews, of the Washington Post, had delivered his devoted…
The office for the company I work for has a large selection of edgy, anti-authority education books. I picked up this one yesterday and read most of it last night. It’s pretty short (191 pages) and, unlike most education books I come across, has little to say about schools other than to dismiss them almost…
I’ve been on a Bruce Springsteen kick recently (I think I could write a two-thousand word analysis on Rosalita alone), but occasionallyI need something more mindless and disposable. My recent pop album of choice has been Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, which has risen considerably in my esteem the past few weeks. It has a lot…
In the past I have analyzed and criticized the Annie Awards. Here is an update on the situation. Hey, I guess someone out there is listening to me*! Less than a month after I discussed the flawed voting structure, ASIFA-Hollywood elected a new president and vice president. The outgoing president — Antran Manoogian, who, though…
In the past I have praised the Annie Awards for providing a lens into the most important animated features from each year of the past couple decades. The largest mark against the awards came in 2008, when Kung-Fu Panda won Film of the Year against Wall-E, which was by far the most recognized and important…
Rating: 4 stars (out of 4) The Social Network’s top comparison among critics has been the beloved Citizen Kane, as both chronicle the rise and fall of a young, ambitious individual who shapes a new technological medium to his advantage. After 4 viewings of the former (plus many more of certain scenes), endless reading of…
Over in that house is a kid who thinks you’re the greatest, and it’s not because you’re a space ranger, pal. It’s because you’re a toy. You are his toy! – Woody Rating: 4 stars (out of 4) The success of Toy Story was almost unprecedented: Critics made it the fourth best-reviewed film of all time.…
On February 3, 1986, Pixar became an independent company by LucasArts selling the organization to Steve Jobs. (Little known fact: Jobs’ first billion actually came from Pixar, not from Apple.) Pixar spent its first decade exclusively releasing shorts before it partnered with Disney to bring you Toy Story in 1995. The rest, as they say,…
Welcome to the teens! The aughties have reached their end and all of us who smugly ignored 2000 and celebrated the new millennium as 2001 rolled in are psyched about the new decade. Why? Because a new decade means that it’s prime time for retrospectives on the last decade! So, just in time for the…
As we approach the 18-month mark for our web-site, we’ve decided to revisit a few of the best articles from our annals. Each of the three main writers for this site have chosen a few of their own favorite articles. There’s also a list of the most popular articles in the history of the site.…