August 2010

Netflix noir from down under

August 29, 2010

Fred MacMurray, of all people, summed up film noir best with this classic line in Double Indemnity in 1944: “Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?” If you like film noir, you know that this [...]

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One less reason for a land line

August 28, 2010

I was one of the million-plus people who tried out Google Voice  on Thursday and Friday. In case you missed it, that’s the new Gmail-related service that lets you make and receive phone calls from your computer. No big deal, you’d think, except that it’s absolutely free for any number in the U.S. Free is [...]

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“The Kids” ain’t quite all right

August 22, 2010

It’s impossible to criticize a move like The Kids Are All Right without seeming a stodgy lezbophobe and hater of gay marriage, so let me preface my remarks by saying that I have no problem with lesbians – far from it – and I am adamantly indifferent on the subject of same-sex marriage. No, what [...]

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Life without the iPhone: It’s definitely doable

August 21, 2010

Occasionally you see these stories about people deciding to do without their smart phones for a day, or a week, or possibly 10 days, just to see if it can be done — or if their heads will indeed explode from sheer lack of connectedness, as seen in the 1981 movie Scanners. As of today, [...]

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Skip the book, wait for the movie

August 20, 2010

I don’t know what it is about me and zombie movies. I really don’t. But God help me, I do love them so. They don’t have to be good. They don’t have to have high production values. They don’t have to be available in Blue-Ray format. They just have to have a large number of [...]

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Once more with feeling

August 15, 2010

I‘ve come to western Virginia in the dead of summer to visit the littlest of little girls: June Rose Wilson. Age: five weeks: Weight: 7.6 pounds. Eyes: deep blue. Hair: almost visible. One day, I hope she will call me Grandpa. For now, I’m just another benign blob on the periphery of her vision, one [...]

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Motels of the damned

August 11, 2010

While it is physically possible to drive 1,250 miles in a day, I don’t recommend it. I tried that coming back from Montana in July, leaving just after 5 a.m. and arriving here after midnight. For hours afterward, my fitful sleep was haunted by the vision of pavement rushing beneath me, weeds and signs blurring [...]

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