In college, I fancied myself a movie expert because I owned the Godfather box set and could quote Showgirls. I’d been raised on Entertainment Tonight and HBO reruns, and I didn’t know underground film any better than I knew dressing in big flannel shirts and torn jeans made
As a kid growing up in Texas, I didn’t follow politics or look up to elected officials. I was too busy worshiping Rob Lowe and practicing crotch thrusts for my future as a Solid Gold dancer. That indifference changed when I got to college. For one, Solid Gold was
My favorite documentary—one of my favorite movies, actually—is the British Seven Up! series. Started in 1964, the project interviews a group of English schoolchildren every seven years as they grow into adults, have children, lose their parents, and face their own mortality. YouTube loves this kind of time-
My new obsession is VideoJug, a compendium of how-to videos on everything from “How to Cook a Chicken Curry in 10 Minutes” to “How to Tie a Bowtie”. Each installment is narrated by some British person in a manner so soothing and convincing they could coax me through my
I’ve always wondered why there weren’t more modern film versions of Macbeth. Hamlet’s been made three times in the past 15 years. What’s wrong, Kenneth Branagh, afraid of a little Scottish play? The last Macbeth on screen was the 1971 version directed by Roman Polanski and
Not long ago, a 79-year-old British widower calling himself “geriatric1927” began vlogging on YouTube. Since then, he has made national news, become one of the most watched personalities on YouTube, and prompted thousands of teens to weepily call their grandpappy. By now, geriatric1927 has made over a dozen
There is a stock sound effect that originated in the ’50s, known as the “Wilhelm scream.” Championed by Star Wars sound engineer Ben Burtt, the cry—perhaps best transcribed as “aaaeehhh”—made its way into several of Burtt’s projects, including the Star Wars trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
This week I went through the five stages of Mel Gibson: fascination, followed by disgust, horror, pity, and, at some point I suppose, hunger. By Tuesday, I was already sick of all the noise: Who really cares? And who ordered all this delivery sushi? But I did appreciate this Daily
As a college student, I was prone to storing empty beer cans wherever they landed and passing out while eating frozen corny dogs. I consider myself a reformed slob now—I make my bed every morning, and I haven’t fallen asleep with a frozen corny dog in weeks. But
Two decades before Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest had the biggest opening weekend in history, Johnny Depp was just another rock-star wannabe roped into a shitty FOX contract. Back in those days, Depp complained an awful lot about playing Tom Hanson, the dreamy undercover cop on
