Posts by James Roberts

[rating=8.00] N.W.A. hit the world like an atom bomb, exposing a side of life that existed unseen by the majority. Safe in suburban enclaves, much of America reacted to their debut record, Straight Outta Compton, with revulsion—its gritty depictions of life as a young, black male in California were too much for many to bear. […]

The legacy of NWA was solidified from the opening bars of Straight Outta Compton. It was a beat that hit so hard that the reverberations circle the globe to this day. The game changed so drastically upon that record’s release that the topography of hip-hop was forever altered—the fun and the playful rhymes of rap’s […]

Strap yourself in. The trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic, The Hateful 8, is here, and it looks to be a doozy. Like his previous movie, Django Unchained (and to a certain extent, Kill Bill vol 2) The Hateful 8 has Tarantino exploring the western genre, as eight strangers come together to weather a blizzard […]

[rating=8.00] “Omega Station” And so it ends. The long and twisting journey of True Detective’s second season came to a close last night, and chances are your opinions on the finale depend greatly on your opinions of this season as a whole. Speaking only for myself, I was satisfied. “Omega Station” ended the story of corruption […]

[rating=8.00] It ain’t easy getting older for punks. Punk rock is a culture that propels itself and evolves, in part, due to the youthful exuberance of its followers. Mosh pits and pogo dancing get hard once you hit 30, and slowly you become the weird old guy standing in the back of the club with a […]

[rating=9.00] The following is a facsimile of the existential freak out had by our critic after screening The End of the Tour. What the fuck am I even doing with my life? I don’t even know anymore. I had goals once, man. I had dreams. I was going to take shit over, hit the world […]

[rating=2.00] Watching Irrational Man can be best described as watching a bunch of WASPs doing and saying a bunch of WASPy things amidst a sea of head-up-your-ass intellectualism that’s every bit as tedious and shallow as a conversation in an all-night coffee shop with an undergrad who’s taking introduction to philosophy. It’s a peek behind […]

[rating=1.00] To call Fantastic Four a monumental piece of shit would be to give it too much credit. For better or for worse, a piece of shit (monumental or otherwise) is something tangible. You could, if you so desired, hold it in your hands and it is the result of a lot of hard work […]

As lead singer of Bad Religion, Greg Graffin has been a champion both of the rights and responsibilities of the individual. His philosophy is one of both freedom and duty—yes, as people we are free to live as we desire without fear of tyranny, but each of us must remain conscious of our impact on […]

[rating=9.00] “Black Maps and Motel Rooms” I know this isn’t really a popular internet opinion, but I’ve been absolutely rapt by this season of True Detective. While reading the opinions of commentators and other critics—all of whom seem to wonder where this season is going and what everything has to do with everything else—I’ve been sitting […]

[rating=8.00] I’ve got a bit of a bizarre relationship with the original Wet Hot American Summer; it’s a movie that had to grow on me. Usually, that’s not an easy feat for a movie to accomplish. Movies I hate rarely get the opportunity to redeem themselves and I positively loathed it the first time I […]

[rating=9.00] Typically, the longer a movie franchise goes the worse the series gets. I think this accounts for the rise of the trilogy as a cultural powerhouse over the last decade. Somewhere along the line, the studios figured out that the law of diminishing returns tends to kick in around entry number four as that’s […]

[rating=4.00] Whatever bad I have to say about Vacation—and there’s a lot—I want to acknowledge that it sure did try its best. That may not count for much, overall, but it counts for something; they could have easily just not tried and relied on the same jokes and the same bits as its predecessors, but […]

[rating=7.00] “Church in Ruins” Last season, Detective Rusty Coehle made mention of the sprawl of their case. What started as a relatively by the numbers serial killing investigation, ballooned into an investigation involving church leaders and state senators, indicative of a conspiracy that reached the highest echelons of Louisiana government. As massive and far reaching as […]

I had just returned from a movie last night when I heard the news about yet another senseless act of violence and inhumanity, the kind which seem to take place all too frequently in our nation in this day and age. At a theater in Louisiana, two innocents lost their lives, nine others were injured, […]

[rating=5.00] Assume, for the moment, you know nothing about Southpaw. That’s probably a pretty safe bet, otherwise you probably wouldn’t have found yourself here, but roll with me for a moment. You know nothing about Southpaw, and I tell you, “It’s a boxing movie.” Using this as your jumping off point, I now want you […]

[rating=3.00] A good idea is a good idea, and there’s a certain amount of credit due towards it for being a good idea. And, for this, I will credit Pixels. As a premise, it’s not that bad. The 2010 short film of the same name proved this when it first hit, showcasing, in under three […]

[rating=8.00] “Other Lives” Last week’s explosive conclusion was a game changer in a lot of ways. It was sort of this season’s “all in” moment, where the viewer was offered their first reward for sticking with the slow burn as long as they had. For our detectives, however, the climax was a bit more devastating. As […]

[rating=6.00] I’ve never much been a fan of Amy Schumer’s pretty woman with a foul mouth shtick upon which she’s built her career, at least as it pertains to her stand up. I’ve seen a few of her acts, and they were okay, I guess, but her whole “I get drunk and have sex” persona […]

[rating=8.00] As much as I’ve made no bones about my love and appreciation for all things Marvel, the experience of Age of Ultron left much to be desired in my mind. It seemed, then, that the franchise was at a tipping point, where the unending cross-media saturation that Marvel has perfected over the last seven […]