I am cynical of the Olympics for 3.95 years out of every Olympic cycle. I remember well that the events are obscure, the clichés are hyperbolic, and the coverage is amateur. Then once it starts, I admit I cannot look away. There is something about international competition and around the clock multi-venue multi-channel coverage that is just addicting.

This is not to say that my reasons for being cynical are unfounded. Trust me there is plenty to make fun of. But there is plenty to appreciate too. In the next week you will see, hear, and read plenty of commentary on the Olympics, but none so profound as the kind you will find in the Olympic Coliseum. Let us take a look after one full week. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, sports by Robert O'Hara
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It is impossible to “spoil” something that is already rotten. However, the following post contains specific plot information about the film “The Dark Knight Rises,” so if you haven’t yet seen the film (don’t!) and you don’t want to know what happens in the film (trust me, you don’t!), then read no further.

There is a great deal of irony in the title “The Dark Knight Rises.” The character of Batman cannot rise above this material, and so the character sinks. The film is completely nonsensical and ludicrous, so the film itself sinks, hard. The acclaim afforded the film shows a decline in critical thinking, in particular among fanboys and geeks; fandom sinks. And each of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films has declined in quality. The franchise sinks.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is the worst Batman film of all time. It is worse than Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin.” It is worse than “Batman XXX: A Porn Parody.” It is worse than Leslie Martinson’s “Batman” film from 1966. It’s worse than “The Dark Knight Raises.” [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, movies by Ricky Sprague
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Last week the directors of the Bayreuth Festival got into a kerfuffle with the Russian bass-baritone Yevgeny Nikitin when a German TV show revealed that he has a swastika tattoo on one of his man-boobs. This was a problem because Nikitin had been invited to perform the lead in “The Flying Dutchman,” an opera by Richard Wagner, the music world’s most famous anti-Semite, whose work was much beloved by Adolph Hitler, another noted anti-Semite. It was a Nazi supernova!

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Tags: art & entertainment, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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