Tag Archives: bleak

It’s been more than 40 years since Rob Reiner’s mockumentary classic This Is Spinal Tap introduced pop culture to its most enduring fictional rockers, the eminently quotable long-haired bozos of the English metal band Spinal Tap (or Spın̈al Tap, if we’re being technical). The on-stage mishaps and backstage pretensions of Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Derek …

Things are grim in “The Long Walk,” the adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novel (published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) that’s essentially “The Hunger Games” for teenage boys or “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” for Gen Z — texts that traffic in the extreme outcomes of American capitalism, a force that rots from within. “The Long Walk” is the first …

There was a strange shimmer of hope in the air this past weekend. The weather in the Northeast was perfect: sunny, warm enough, big blue skies. The sun dawdled along the fading of summer. People were out smiling, shopping and bopping, having a beer in the sun with their friends. It was a holiday weekend, too, which meant three gorgeous …

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — After a summer dominated by injuries, the San Francisco 49ers had a nearly full house for Monday’s practice, including Jauan Jennings. Jennings had looked sharp at the start of training camp but had been out with a calf injury for more than a month. He also has been pushing for a reworked contract, and it was …

Every August, Alamo Drafthouse prepares for a late-summer slowdown. “We joke that weekday business gets soft because parents have to think about buying their kids a new backpack,” says the theater chain’s chief revenue officer, Mike Sherrill. Studios must have the same thought because the calendar from August through early October is always sparse, at least compared with the glut …

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delved into the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement, a “big tent” group that’s “not just Republicans”. Many within the loose Maha movement are parents interested in feeding their children healthy food. “People have found themselves in Maha for all sorts of reasons, and there are areas where it has …

Growing up, my father and I never saw eye to eye. We were always engaged in an ideological war, as my passion for creativity clashed with his cold focus on making money and putting food on the table above all else. There was a cultural divide between us that took me nearly two decades to understand. While I was born …

Superman might be one of the most confusing blockbuster films to hit the big screen this year. The tone, as you might expect from a goofball superhero movie that is plainly about the invasion of Gaza, is all over the shop. Too many characters contribute too little to the plot. There are moments when it feels like it was written …