Through the mornings when the sun brightened your house with moments full of my youthful laughs
Perhaps in the evenings between the passing of the cars and the long walks of our synchronized slow steps
Maybe when I open the window, I’ll hear the comforting echo of your voice
When the darkness envelops me
The fear of loneliness invades me
Yet, you shine your presence silently in a billion ways
One can’t spend all day gazing up at the living, just as one can’t spend every living day pondering death. So we walk and talk. We share the stories of our lives. We develop friendships. We again pretend that we have infinite time.
I swiveled in my chair and gaped at the shadowy figure. Sure enough, it was my old idol, Kwai Chang Caine. He stood so close I could feel his breath on my right shoulder, though his gaze was fixed on the far wall. My voice burst from my chest before I could stop myself. “Hi David,” I said. “How was the concert?”
It’s two in the morning and Davie is standing under the bedroom doorway watching his wife sleep. He wants to know what fuels her. There was a time he was so sure of the contents of her soul that he would have wagered anything on it, now he wonders if he’s spent fourteen years chasing unidentified leaks and gaseous fumes.
My smile curls into an unattractive expression, my teeth protruding in the opening between my lips. Luke tugs the ends of his tatty t-shirt and curtsies. The ring stirs a sickening anxiety in the back of my throat, itching away. I down the rest of my pint in one to quell the discomfort.
Your eyes are the night sky I always seek out – but they consume me like black holes without restrain, trepidation or warning.
Bits and pieces cracked off my body
A carefully crafted structure, falling apart in front of their eyes
But how would they ever know?
It was the end, but it was also far from it
A crow drops silver rings in birch’s hollow
where bark peels off like parchment.
I use the bark for spells lately
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Bumblebee
The unseen villain in Bumblebee (which for the sake of our collective sanity we can call the only installment in the Transformers franchise) is Michael Bay who, in 1987, when the film takes place, was working his way up the Hollywood ladder. With Bay still fetching coffee for Spielberg, director Travis Knight and star Hailee Steinfeld are free to have as much fun as possible with this admittedly silly concept, a concept that works considerably better when you can tell what's happening on screen. After all, a little fun was all 80’s kids ever wanted out of these movies.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Aquaman
Aquaman drowns a bit under the weight of its own spectacle, and there were moments when I found myself needing sonar to find one character amidst a screen of CGI fish. But if you’ve always wanted to see Patrick Wilson riding a battle shark, hop in – the water’s fine. The Atlantis mythology is dense, and partly magical, partly silly. But it’s an agreeable silliness, to which Jason Momoa and Amber Heard bring a boatload of earnestness and charm, especially in their lower key scenes together. Plus there’s Nicole Kidman eating a pet goldfish right out of its tank.
Our picks for the best movies of 2018!
Our picks for Best in TV this year!
The Best of the Rest of 2018
Our picks for Best Music of 2018
Buried beneath one of the most shockingly bad Hollywood movies in years is one of Steve Carell’s best performances. Welcome to Marwen has a lot of good people behind it. Co-screenwriter Caroline Thompson has a track record which includes The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and the 1993 version of Secret Garden. Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote and directed the movie, is justifiably considered a legend. Yet somehow, despite the odds, Welcome to Marwen is one of the most depressingly bad movies in recent memory. It’s ineptitude on virtually every level is almost surreal. This thought is made all the worse by the realization that it’s one of the dullest movies in recent memory, as well.
Sean Woodard takes a look at the religious structure of one of the most popular horror films of all time.
COMICS / Mr. Butterchips / Alex Schumacher / December 2018
Alex Schumacher provides some last-minute holiday shopping ideas in the latest Mr. Butterchips strip!
Still I didn’t sense anything,
feel alert then alarm
like when I dream of snakes,
find an owl on the window sill,
see rat droppings under the sink.