The first Kanye song I heard was back in 2005, several months after the release of The College Dropout. “Through the Wire” on a compilation of Grammy nominees. Shortly afterwards, I read an article about Kanye’s mercurial personality. I became intrigued and checked out the rest of the album. I enjoyed it, but not enough to…
Kids, I’ve long wanted to write a retrospective of How I Met Your Mother for this site. Then Grant wrote one and, of course, it’s fantastic and way better than what I would have written. But I’ll take a crack at it, even though I no longer feel pressure to hit all the major points:…
My brain is kind of fried and scattered right now, so this is not going to be the most cohesive of posts. In fact, I’m not even going to try. This entire post is going to be a series of mini-articles and lists. Enjoy! Six Reasons Batman is Intrinsically Awesome and Badass 1. He’s a…
I sat down to my computer last week, ready to write the next entry in my Top 100. “Oasis? I can probably sum up my feelings in — what, 1200 words? 1500?” But, remember: I always a) underestimate things, and b) overdo things. So here I am sitting with almost 4000 words about one of my favorite…
Shortly after we got married, Katy and I were reading a whole lot and started a “book blog” called Readers by Night. It’s been inactive for about a year now, but we’ll bring it back some day. Promise. Anyways, one of my dreams has always been to own and read all of the Newbery Winners,…
One of the immutable axioms of music: every song sounds great mashed up with the Space Jam song. I don’t know what it is about the song and its ridiculous beat and rapping by the Quad City DJ’s, most famous otherwise for the song “C’mon and Ride It.” But it’s like lead to an alchemist:…
When I put together my very first draft of the ranking of the Top 100, I had the book Spectacular Now just a few slots out of the ranking. The movie had just come out, but I figured it wouldn’t really change my opinion of The Spectacular Now as a whole. Then I finally got…
If you just watched the opening half hour of My Cousin Vinny, I’d definitely excuse you for thinking that it’s a merely average comedy. The set-up of the film is nothing special: A series of misunderstanding and farcical twists of fate leave two New Yorkers on trial for a murder they didn’t commit in Alabama.…
I’ve never seen a show quite like Enlightened. It defies simple description. Probably the most succinct description would be “dramedy about a woman’s struggle to find meaning in life while working at a soul-sucking corporation.” Sounds fun, right? In its two seasons — just eighteen half hour episodes — Enlightened tracks Amy Jellicoe (a bewilderingly…
We are now two thirds through Dan’s Top 100 Everything, which means that it’s time for the second round of Honorable Mentions! I described the first round of Honorable Mentions as “things that didn’t make the list because they placed just outside the top 100.” You may think that’s the very definition of an “honorable…