Mister Critic

Music Monday: Is It Still a Good Day?

The year was 1993 and the lights on the Good Year Blimp read “Ice Cube’s a Pimp”. It was the perfect song to blast as you and your friends cruised up and down that one street in town that everyone cruised down. It was so relevant to our small Midwestern town, high schooler lives and [...]

Another Earth and The Help

Reviewed by Ms. Critic After throwing back some Midol and curling up with the heating pad, I turned to the trusty tele to find some comfort. It was actually Mr. Critic who selected these movies from Netflix, probably from my prompts of wanting to see more “girl movies”. Let me confess one thing before I [...]

Review of Best Original Song Nominees

So this year only two songs have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song: “Man or Muppet” and “Real in Rio”. Take a listen. Real in Rio Man or Muppet First let me say, I am disappointed that there are only two songs. Either the Academy needs to change their rules or [...]

Academy Awards Nominations: A Critic’s Cry for Help

So the 2012 Academy Awards Nominations have been announced, and yet again I find myself behind in my movie watching. I feel like I have let you down, dear reader, and so I will try to hurry up and review as many of these as I can in the next few weeks. But I can’t [...]

The Obligatory “I’m back” Post

Yes, that’s right. Mister Critic is back to biz-natch and ready to blog it up. Here’s a little something to break the ice and get us back into the swing of things.

Thirtysomething, 24 Years Later

Reviewed by Ms. Critic I’ve been caught up. Swept away to a world not too different from my own, watching Thirtysomething on Netflix has been my dirty little secret. The first taping of Thirtysomething was in 1987. So you’d think that something created so long ago, a silly sitcom would really not resonate with a [...]

Venti’s, Salem Oregon

Reviewed by Mister Hand For Salem, finding a quality place to dine out that offers good food & reasonable prices is not too hard. Add to that a great atmosphere… and now you’re probably thinking about heading to Portland. Worry not though… there is hope. Enter Venti’s - once located in the historic Reed Opera House but now [...]

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Reviewed by Ms. Critic I looked around for a chair not too close to someone while I discreetly tuck the cover around the book. This was not a book you really want to be reading in public. Well I guess you can, but people may think you are kooky. A book all about dead people…cadavers. [...]

Music Monday: Wise Up and Hurt Feelings

I love this scene from Magnolia. The director, P.T. Anderson, is so creative, and brave given the risks he takes in his creativity. This scene, set to the song “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann, is so random and unexpected, yet it fits perfectly within the movie by pulling all these very different characters together into [...]

The Walking Dead

Reviewed by Mister Hand Just when I was hoping to cut back on my TV intake and start doing more productive things with my life like read or develop a new hobby, AMC (aka Awesome Movie Channel) decides to bring the Undead genre back to life. I already love Mad Men and now we have [...]