PopPressed

I’ve been on a kick lately with NUMB3RS. Yes, the TV show. I’m not much of a TV fanatic. Actually, I think it kills your brain, but I adore crime dramas. I watch them. I read them. I dream them. I am so happy that there are about a bazillion crime drama shows on the boob-tube these days. I just don’t bother to wait until a specific time every week to watch said programs. And I hate commercials. We watch everything on DVD at our house. It works well with my obsessive-compulsi…

Usually the King of Awkward. Tonight is Michael Scott’s last episode of The Office. Even though the show has lost some punch in recent years I feel obligated to watch Steve Carell’s last dance. Nothing can stay fresh forever and when I watch The Office now, that is my feeling. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with it, but it doesn’t have the same impact that it once did. The gags get old or too far-fetched, plot lines are eventually resolved, and the show basically outgrows itself. It was…

Attention spans are wonderful things. Too bad they are noticeably lacking in society today. I would appreciate even a small attention span, going to dinner with someone or walking along having a conversation without them looking at their cell phone, sitting down to watch a movie in its entirety without needing to log on to the Internet, and so on. So I’m reaching here when I suggest watching silent films. An activity that not only requires one to read (how dare I suggest such a thing), but paying attention…

The story of a criminal on the run and his North African safe haven, Pepe Le Moko marked the beginning of a wave of French cinema that focussed on characters ground in tragedy, much in the same way that the Film Noir movement would inspire the American cinema in the years following the second World War. Julian Duvivier and his star, Jean Gabin, were elevated to the highest reaches of cultural importance following the success of the film, with the tone and subject matter going on to inspire a generation of…