I have about 5 posts brewing right now, but none are quite ready for the show, so here are some links in the meantime.
- In Praise of ‘Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers’: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas mounts a vigorous and surprisingly convincing defense of what most people consider to be a mediocre entry in an unimpressive series. I love reading film criticism like this, though I have to admit that reading this post is probably more entertaining and interesting than watching the movie itself. As a slasher sequel, I suppose you could do a lot worse than Halloween IV and I will happily admit that the ending was oddly effective in its own way, but it’s ultimately not that great of a movie (especially when it invites comparison to one of the greatest horror movies of all time). I haven’t seen the movie in about 10 years, but it’s probably better than the Zombie reboot series, right?
- Everything I Know About Tennis I Learned from Cow Paths: Paul Kedrosky takes the (apparently apocryphal) stories about desire lines and applies the concept to tennis, noting an interesting difference between 1980 and 2010.
- Heat Wave Strategies, Or: At What Temperature Would You See ‘Twilight’?: The title pretty much says it all, though I think our respective tolerances are a bit different. I’d probably have switched The A-Team and Twilight on her list. Actually considering that I was surprisingly taken by The A-Team, it could probably drop even further than that…
- Rise of the Literature Machines: Madeleine Schwartz notes the popularity of the I Write Like meme and points to another automated literature analysis tool that summarizes entire novels.
- Chewbacca fights Nazis while riding mutant squirrel: No commentary necessary.
- Minimalist Movie Posters: A ton of great ones here.
- Helping Johnny Remember: Creepy kids are creepy.
That’s all for now…