If the movie makes a mistake, it is that it believes we want to see action. We do not want to see action.

We want to see Dr. John Ryan reading a file. We want to see him comparing waveforms on a big computer. We want to see him choosing his tie for the big presentation on money laundering via offshore bank accounts. We want to see him accepting some coffee from the Acting Deputy Director of the Senate Sub-Committee…

The great thing about the Jurassic World films is that they’ve shifted the quality window so far to the left that Park 3 now feels worthwhile. I like the way the original trilogy explores the idea of “theme park decline”: as the JP studios fall apart with the passing of time, each film has fewer puppets and more CG; the call for help comes from inside the house of Hollywood. As unreality increases (fictional dinosaurs), we are further and further…

The only time someone other than Eiichiro Oda has truly understood the will of One Piece and ironically, it’s with a story that I think Oda himself could never tell - such is the intrinsically holy value of the Strawhat family. This explores channels of the adventure that feel almost taboo for a saga that has always put friendship and camradarie before all else. A very, very risky experiment that paid off better than anyone could ever have imagined. 

Without…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FbtHu8jm8A

When you first get into Gundam, for whatever godforsaken reason, there’s a list they give you. It recommends that you watch the abridged movie trilogy of Mobile Suit Gundam, then watch the entire Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam television series, then watch the film Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack. More recent revisions of this list will throw in Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn, a six-hour show that tries to grasp then-30 years of mobile suit history in its hands. I don’t really know why these…