For over 30 years now, ever since his debut feature She’s Gotta Have It in 1986, Spike Lee has been one of the most innovative and provocative filmmakers of our time. As expressed numerous times throughout his many films, Lee’s highest goal is to “wake up” and uplift all oppressed and deluded people, but he…

I recently watched Goodfellas for the third…and final time, not because I intend to retire to eremitism, join a cult or end my life soon, but—to see how it held up. Seeing it first in 2004 while a twenty-year-old, English-as-a-second language twit enamored with mob flicks centered around New Yawk, big-city, third-world, streetwise culture; and,…

As anyone who has read my in-depth review of Beethoven knows, family movies from the 1990s are often covert founts of darkness and despair, sometimes to the point that it is nigh impossible to see them any other way. Another great example of this curious phenomenon is the 1994 film Baby’s Day Out, which depicts…

In his autobiography LittleWilson and Big God, Anthony Burgess ( for those of you who did not know, his complete name was John Anthony Burgess Wilson. Furthermore, for those of you who do not know, he was author of A Clockwork Orange, Tremor in Intent, The End of the World News, among many other  novels,…

Despite evidence to the contrary, much of it written by me, I am not a monster. Like virtually any human being, I have certainly been known to find dogs charming, but I am happy the building in which I live only allows cats because I would rather see my neighbors’ pets than hear them, and…