A Decade of THE MASTER

It’s been ten whole years since theater screens were graced (in gorgeous 70mm!) with Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 opus, The Master. Existential, psychological, vaguely romantic… the closer one examines it, the more the film seems to shift and writhe away from any singular interpretation or easy classification. To its detractors, this is proof that it’s just a meandering, half-baked waste of time and celluloid… but for the viewer bold enough to approach it in good faith, that’s precisely the beauty of the film: The Master has layers upon layers to peel back and read into, with just enough ambiguity in just the right places to speak uniquely to a variety of cinema lovers. Like the kaleidoscopic blue design of the film’s poster or the Rorschach adorning its DVD cover, one can almost see what they want to see in The Master; and like “Master” Lancaster Dodd’s Cause itself, the right-minded moviegoer consents to having themselves immersed—if not haunted outright—by the film, almost as much through their own efforts as Paul Thomas Anderson’s.

On THE WIRE: A Love Story

SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE WIRE! This is a thorough analysis, detailing various elements from all five seasons in excessive, spoilery detail. If you care about spoilers turn back now. Otherwise, onwards!

I fucking love The Wire. As someone born in Baltimore, but divorced from the city for almost two decades, the show scratched a peculiar itch inside of me. Is it heritage? Or just a natural curiosity to see things set in one’s place of birth? Despite living in St. Louis for the better part of a decade and a half, I still hesitate to label it as my hometown. There’s something about those Baltimore streets. Tragedy, heartbreak, humor. Magic! David Simon and co. managed to spin some of the finest narrative fiction put to camera over the course of five seasons.

On Underdogs, Divisive Sequels, and the Indomitable Spirit of ROCKY

Aw geez, here we go. Recently my buddy Vern (follow him @varnyo on Twitter for good times) recommended Creed to me, it being from 2015 and having attracted a significant amount of critical acclaim. Not gonna lie, when I heard they were making yet another Rocky sequel, I scoffed. Never was much of a Rocky fan. I’d seen the first one, enjoyed it, but that was it. I drew a hard line in a sand, across which no Rocky sequel would penetrate.

On TRAFFIC, SICARIO, and the War on Drugs

Sicario and Traffic. Traffic and Sicario. Two fantastic films united in their commitment to documenting America’s war on drugs. They’re similar tonally and thematically, yet stand on separate sides of a fence stretching across fifteen years’ time. The differences in these movies are representative of changes not only in said Drug War, but embody the changes in America’s post-9/11 mentality.

How Season Two of FARGO Won the Anthology War in One Episode (and why TRUE DETECTIVE didn’t)

This article contains some light spoilers for the second season of True Detective and the second season premiere of Fargo. If you care about that sort of thing.

2014 was a lovely year for television. Particularly, anthology television (shows with largely unrelated, self-contained seasons). Popularized by American Horror Story, refined to a crisp science by the likes of two similar-yet-oh-so-different crime sagas. My original plan was to write a “Battle of the Anthology” piece, comparing and contrasting the first seasons of Fargo and True Detective. Long story short, I waited too long, and now we’ve got sophomore seasons of both to contend with. This is not a bad thing.

On Racism, David Simon, and SHOW ME A HERO

While Show Me A Hero is based on true events, this article does contain spoilers for all six episodes. Proceed with extreme prejudice.

Show Me A Hero is David Simon’s (The Wire, Tremé) latest HBO foray. It’s a nifty little diddy that takes the form of a six-episode miniseries centering on Yonkers, New York, and their open defiance to build court ordered public housing. The action is dialog-heavy, focusing on a councilman (later mayor), a townswoman active in the protests against said project, and a few key members of the minority-populated West Yonkers.

On Lost: An Essay About One Of TV’s Most Misunderstood Classics

NOTE: This article contains major spoilers for the entirety of LOST. I’m writing for those that have seen and are at least relatively familiar with the show’s characters, seasons, and major plotlines.

Quite a few months back, I finished the Great Lost Rewatch. And phew, what a ride it was. A lot of thoughts and feelings that I initially had about the show were seriously dispelled in the time since I watched the finale and cast the island out of my heart and mind. Entire seasons which I wrote off as being crushed by the writer’s strike look very different four years out. So here are the thoughts and opinions of one man who decided to rewatch a show that he really knew all the answers to already.