Miscellaneous
My 2005 CineVegas Film Festival Diary
Day 1 (Saturday, June 11):
The most noticeable thing about Las Vegas is the heat. Some of the natives today were talking about how it's been "mild" so far this June, meaning it's only been around 90....
My 2005 Sundance Film Festival Diary
Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005):
The first day of Sundance is always a Thursday, and the only event is the opening-night film in Park City, which is preceded by a welcome address from festival founde...
The Best and Worst Movies of 2004
There were 293 films released in Salt Lake City this year. I reviewed 245 of them. Of the 48 I missed, only one was a major release -- "Vanity Fair," for which I missed the press screening due to illn...
Media Inventory: What I Watched and Read in 2004
As Americans, we spend hundreds of hours a year consuming mass media. I am no exception. In fact, thanks to commercial-skipping technology and careful planning, sometimes I consume hundreds of hours o...
Ten Words You Seldom Hear Spoken in Prayers at Church
Ten Words You Seldom Hear Spoken in Prayers at Church
knapsack
zesty
ninja
haltertop
tetherball
Value-Meal
spicy
holla
bear claw
pirate
My 2004 Sundance Film Festival Diary
Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 15, 2004):
The first day of Sundance is the big gala opening night special whoop-de-doo where Redford blabs for a few minutes about the importance of independent film, and then ...
The Best and Worst Movies of 2003
2003 was dominated by "Lord of the Rings," with "The Two Towers" occupying everyone's attention at the beginning, anticipation for "Return of the King" keeping us alive through the middle, and the act...
Bad 9/11 poetry: ‘Untitled’
More bad poetry inspired by 9/11. (See this entry for background.)
Untitled
by Sharee Thomas
America
Choice land,
A gift from God.
Freedom,
Fought for
and earned
By generations
of the past.
...
Bad 9/11 poetry: ‘I Love My Country’
More bad poetry inspired by 9/11. (See this entry for background.)
I Love My Country
by Lenore Allan Brinkerhoff
A terrible blow to our great U.S.A. --
9-11-01 we'll all recall that horrible d...
Bad 9/11 poetry: ‘Life Goes On’
Immediately after 9/11 happened, The Daily Herald (where I worked at the time) was bombarded with poetry written by locals who apparently believed that, in times of national emergency, The Daily Heral...
My 2003 Sundance Film Festival Diary
Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 16, 2003):
It was my fourth year of full-time festival coverage -- the advantage of being a member of the press in Utah -- but only the first time that I'd attended the opening ...
A Year of Good Friends and Occasionally Some Bad Movies
It goes without saying that movies are a big part of a movie critic's life. But with a majority of films being viewed at sterile press screenings, the actual movie-going experience diminishes with tim...
The Best and Worst Movies of 2002
Movie critics and normal people are living in peace and harmony.
Glance at my list of the best movies of 2002 and you'll find no foreign films, no Sundance Film Festival entries, and only one docum...
The Best and Worst Movies of 2001
If 2000 was the Year of the Bad Movie -- and believe me, it was -- 2001 was the Year of the Mediocre Movie.
Some were flat-out bad, of course (see separate list). But the more prevalant trend was t...
The Best and Worst Movies of 2000
For once it's not just the whiny critics: This actually HAS been a bad year for movies.
Critics' 10-best lists are as different from one another as they could be, with no films dominating. And the ...
The Best and Worst Movies of 1999
More than any year in recent memory, 1999 served up films that were unconventional and innovative, films that turned out winners despite having the odds stacked against them.
The low-budget, homema...
Too Gross to Print
As discussed in Snide Remarks #57, some people sent in some really gross and horrifying roommate stories. All of these, I have to believe, are true; I really can't see anyone making this stuff up. I a...
Plagiarized Titanic Column
Some guy got a hold of "Clash of the Titanic" in e-mail form, tore it apart, and sent it out to some of his friends, with the title "If Reader's Digest Did 'Titanic," or "'Titanic' in a Nutshell." You...
A Paper I Wrote for a College Class in 1997 Defending ‘Independence Day’
I discovered this file in an old dusty corner of my hard drive in the early 2010s. It's my final paper for a film class I took in college. It was written in March 1997, when I was 22. I like to say th...
