http://blog.podgallery.com Because one Man's Monster Truck Rally is another Man's Mona Lisa. . . Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:05:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en PEANUTS The old neighborhood isn't what it used to be. Twenty years past their wonder years, the cast of Peanuts are finding out that life ain't a bed of roses. Snoopy, the one character who binded them all together, has long since gone. After the book deal never materialized, Snoopy turned to ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/27/its-always-darkest-before-it-gets-darker-part-three/ POPEYE Popeye was the union of a scurvy sea dog and an opium-smoking slattern in the Asian pirate-hole of Madriporno in the Golden Triangle. As a boy he was beaten so severely by his father - an embittered alcoholic with a leather belt he called "Mr.Wimpy" - that Popeye lost ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/26/its-always-darkest-before-it-gets-darker-part-two/ So who would have guessed it? "Dark" is the new black, folks! After years of gritty Hollywood scripts being recalibrated on the corporate anvil to make the hero "more likable" it would seem that the success of The Dark Knight has convinced certain executives that our cultural archetypes no longer ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/25/its-always-darkest-before-it-gets-darker-part-one/ A few years back I attended the annual screenwriting expo in Los Angeles, specifically to see veteran screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride) talk about his life and the state of screenwriting in general in front of about 5,000 people. ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/22/the-end-of-days-part-five/ ... the investment begins to falter. By the time he was reissuing digital manipulations of the original trilogy to bilk fans who needed to invest in every version of the movies, surely the curtain had been pulled back in the tent, and the Wizard of Oz was seen to be ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/21/the-end-of-days-part-four/ Harry Knowles can't enjoy his nephew's "glee" because Tatooine is simply no country for old men; he can't sit with his 8-year old buddy, marveling at two suns, forever. His nephew is already skipping away over the sand dunes and Harry can't keep up any more. Moriarty (aka Drew McWeeny, ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/20/the-end-of-days-part-three/ It would seem that even the keepers of the flame - the hard core fan boys - have begun to see the franchise for what it now is: a tired beast of burden dragging itself on trailing hindquarters through the swamps of Dagobah, heading toward the elephant's graveyard of myths. On ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/19/the-end-of-days-part-two/ Ever since George Lucas was taken by the dark side in the couple of weeks following the release of Star Wars, influenced by the dread Darth No-Need-For-401K, he has tried to wring out every last cosmic ounce of juice from his tired space opera bandwagon. The latest iteration of the cultural ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/18/the-end-of-days-part-one/ The Los Angeles Times is a journal with an august history of reportage - factual, editorial and review-based - that has accrued over decades. It shouldn't have to seen to be begging, or touting for customers; but its latest re-launch carried a huge bold legend in its wraparound cover: "The future ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/15/in-defense-of-shameless-pleasures-part-two/ So: if newspapers are relatives, they wouldn't be Grandpa - already resigned to being nearer to the end than the beginning, and thereby not worthy of our attention at all - they're gonna be more like Mom or Pop, with a lot more to lose: feeling for lumps in ... http://blog.podgallery.com/2008/08/05/in-defense-of-shameless-pleasures-part-one/