AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March, 2019. ★★★★ “Consequences,” a character says to another. “Consequences,” the second character replies. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum feels like one gigantic set of consequences for the series, in spite of the fact that very little of it is truly explained. […]
★★★ There are multiple moments where John Wick: Chapter 4 looks to be setting itself up to underwhelm, disappoint, or settle for less. Then it defies itself. The series has grown to the point that it makes order out of consequences, and Chapter 4 traverses four separate continents and the greatest number of intercontinental miles […]
Yesterday was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. In these dark times we find ourselves in, a day like that prompts a useful reminder that Lincoln should not just be celebrated for his idealistic qualities, his speeches, or his being the leader of the North. He should be celebrated, respected, and even admired for his darker deeds. No […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in April, 2017. It is easy to hate Skyler White. And for most of Breaking Bad it was easy to love Walter White. But if the show has a flaw, even when audiences decide they no longer liked or would root for Walter, very […]
On television, you can do anything; except nothing. Despite there being entirely too much of it, I like television today more than I liked it when I was a kid. It is fashionable to label the modern era “the golden age of television.” In reality, that “golden age” ended with a pathetic whimper following the […]
The “Movies of the Century – Year by Year” can be found here. And now the second list to end the year 2022; Merry Christmas to all! This is the list of the century’s best and most significant films, separate from my own list of subjective preferences, but perhaps not entirely so. This list will […]
The Best of the Century List can be found here. So begins a new tradition on V for Verbatim. Lists are fun. They’re what movie writing is all about; they’re instant conversation starters, useful catalogues that remind people “hey, this movie exists too.” But cinema has had something of a problem lately that goes beyond […]
★★ It won’t be as easy to dismiss Avatar: The Way of Water as it was the first. The closest I can get is to call it “Whale Wars: The Avatar Movie.” But that’s less instinctively intuitive than what everyone called the first: “Dances with Wolves and/or Pocahontas in space with blue cat people.” I’m […]
★½ Ryan Coogler should never have agreed to return for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. It is beneath his great talents, a waste of time, and a dishonor to Chadwick Boseman. In the years since Avengers: Endgame played with the space-time continuum to undo the erasure of half the universe by taking away anything and everything […]
A quick guide to determining your predictions for the upcoming House midterms. In nearly every midterm election, the party in power loses seats. Over the last four consecutive midterm elections (2006 – 2018), the president and his party have either lost the House or further lost the House. Before that, strange events disrupted the usual […]
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