by Daniel Erenberg

I’ve been very reluctant to review the Dollhouse pilot since it aired on Friday. Since the launch of Slow Century Magazine, it’s the only thing that people have actually requested I write about. In fact, friends of mine have asked me to review each episode individually, which is something I haven’t done with anything yet. You have to understand. As I’ve stated elsewhere on the site, part of my background comes in Joss Whedon studies. I wrote my undergraduate thesis about the use of foreshadowing in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Indeed, I wrote a weekly column for three years over at Slayage.com, which has been cited in multiple published books about Buffy and Angel. So now here is Dollhouse, the first new Whedon show since Firefly got cancelled back in December of ’03. I have high hopes for it, and I still do after watching the pilot. But Joss Whedon shows are always slow starters, stumbling out of the gate before becoming the masterpieces you can see at their cores.

FULL REVIEW 

Tags: joss whedon dollhouse eliza dushku
February 17, 2009 at 5:42pm

by Danielle Berg

MTV’s The City is the television show you don’t admit you watch, unless you’re watching to be ironic, or to stay updated on The Cut’s hilarious recaps. I watch it. But I’m not doing it (primarily) for the reasons above. I’m watching it for the same reasons we fall in love with slightly less attractive, less intelligent versions of our greatest loves; why we order the same dish at a restaurant even though it’s changed owners and our Curry Supreme will never be as good. I’m watching it to bring back My So-Called Life.

FULL ARTICLE

Tags: mtv the city my so-called life
February 16, 2009 at 1:14pm

by Daniel Erenberg

With Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse set to premiere this Friday night, it must finally be said and agreed upon that Friday is currently the best night of the week for TV. After all, NBC and Sci-Fi are airing near-perfect seasons of Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica, respectfully, and FOX is working hard to create a Geek brand on Friday nights by pairing Dollhouse with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Of course, how long are these shows for the world? Friday night has now been a historically great night for quality TV, but most of the shows I’m thinking of are long-cancelled and forgotten by everyone who doesn’t own one of those depressing “Complete Series” DVD sets that never have endings.

FULL ARTICLE PLUS “IN MEMORIAM” SECTION

Tags: brilliant but cancelled dollhouse bruce campbell friday night
February 12, 2009 at 2:46pm

by Matt Hevia

The don of douchebaggery, the Mickey Mantle of morons, the sultan of steroids, ladies and gentlemen:  A-Rod. The man many have deemed baseball’s best player has admitted to doing steroids in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons and, strangely, I couldn’t care less. I was more concerned with the fact that I’ve never seen someone look so orange on television, and I live on the south shore of Long Island, the home of fake tanning and fist pumping. Alex Rodriguez is the man that decided to smack the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand in the 2004 ALCS, as the Yankees’ season was crumbling. He is the man that screamed while rounding third in an attempt to underhandedly force his opponent to commit an error. And, pardon me for sounding shallow, but this is also the man that is a fucking top-of-the-line third basemen, he could have any girl on the planet, and married a woman that looked like a coked-up back-up dancer for J. Lo. Then, on the rebound, he bagged Madonna about twenty years too late. His choice of women resembles his play in the post-season: shitty.  If you are going to be a complete dickhead, do it 100%, go all the way, and date Paris Hilton.  After re-hashing Mr. Rod’s history of poor and tasteless decisions, I ask, should it surprise a single person that this guy was capable of taking steroids?

FULL RANT

Tags: orange guys madonna is old penis-shrinking drugs
February 12, 2009 at 2:26pm

by Janna Washington

I love a good piece of design almost as much as I love a good movie. It only makes sense, then, that a brilliantly designed movie poster is to me a work of art on par with anything I’ve seen in a museum.

The people at the Criterion Collection understand the value of both good films and good design. In designing boxes for their DVD releases of films they have deemed “important,” they strive to create packaging worthy of the content inside. Inspired by a post by Well Medicated’s Andrew Lindstrom, here are 50 of my favorite Criterion boxes.

FULL LIST

Tags: film posters design
February 11, 2009 at 12:14pm

by Daniel Erenberg

Comic books will never be understood by mainstream audiences, and it’s all the fault of the comic book companies. Here, Marvel have a wonderful new book, written by the interesting indie creator Jonathan Hickman, doing his first mainstream comic book work, co-plotted by superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis and penciled beautifully by rising star Stefano Caselli. But, if a single non-obsessive, ordinary human being were to pick up this book, they’d be completely lost. I can barely explain the origin of this comic without getting dead-eyed stares from laymen.

FULL REVIEW

Tags: marvel comic book review nick fury secret warriors
February 11, 2009 at 12:26am

by Daniel Erenberg

It was impossible for me to be too depressed today, because I was about to see two of my three modern TV idols in person. I feel as though Joss Whedon, Josh Schwartz and J.J. Abrams are at the top of the heap in terms of TV writing these days (I’m gonna go ahead and wait until Matthew Weiner’s follow-up to Mad Men to add him to this list). Abrams wasn’t going to be attending the con this year—though I was psyched for the panel for his new show, Fringe—but Whedon was there to promote his new one, Dollhouse, and Schwartz was in attendance to talk about his sophomore season slump-defying Chuck.

FULL ARTICLE

Tags: dollhouse geeks new york comic con chuck fringe
February 8, 2009 at 11:39pm

by Daniel Erenberg

Like the middle chapter of most trilogies, the second day of Comic Con felt a bit like filler, killing time until the grand conclusion. I woke up in better spirits this morning (though still not great) and walked over to the Javits Center with my head held medium-high. There were only two Saturday panels that I really gave a shit about and those were Cup O’ Joe, a regular Comic Con affair, which is, basically, just a chance to listen to Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada answer fan questions, and a spotlight panel about J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 and a guy whose comic career has included excellent runs on Thor and The Amazing Spider-Man.

FULL ARTICLE

Tags: comic con new york comic con
February 8, 2009 at 12:49am

written by Patrick Gaughan
illustrated by Hanna S. Abi-Hanna

If Billy from Manor Drive came over, he would want to play wiffleball, and Jerry didn’t feel like chasing the ball around the yard all day.  Wiffleball’s no fun with two people.  Tom from four doors down might be home, but he was much more interested in playing police games with plastic guns.  They would run around Jerry’s brick house, their little mouths making laser sounds, “Pew!  Pew!  Pew!,” until the inevitable argument would ensue: “You’re dead – I shot you a thousand times!”  “No way, you missed me” and so on.  There was Charlie from school, who had invited Jerry to his first sleepover a few weeks ago, but Charlie liked monster movies and Jerry almost shat himself having to sleep in the dark that night.

FULL STORY

Tags: fiction short story
February 7, 2009 at 12:40pm

Photographer Morgan Levy’s images of Iceland

Tags: interviews photography travel
February 7, 2009 at 12:19pm