Pop Culture Happy Hour: "The Northman"

Alexander Skarsgård wears all-natural fibers in Robert Eggers divisive new VIking epic.

I was glad to join my old pal Glen Weldon and my new pal Kristen Meinzer for a lively debate vis-a-vis the mertis and demerits of Robert Eggers’s new VIking movie The Northman, but my key takeaway listening back to this is that 30 years ago Conan O’Brien was trying to get us to say Cone-ehhn, not Cone-anne. Today the ghost of Robert E. Howard would like for us all to remember that his barbarian is called Cone-anne.

None of us remembered this.

Cruel to Be Kind: The Homestretch, reviewed.

Roque (center), one of the three young Chicagoans profiled in The Homestretch, is a bad poster child for homeless youth.

Here's my review of the disappointing Kartemquin Films' documentary The Homestretch for The Dissolve. I made a boneheaded mistake in the version of this where I filed wherein I ascribed the phrase "cruel to kind" to Nick Lowe, not to Hamlet -- even though I'd already referenced Hamlet earlier in the review, and in fact, the other piece I filed the day I filed this one was a review of King Lear. Embarrassing. Editors sometimes save your neck.

Out of Her Tree: Enter Ophelia, distracted, reviewed.

Erin White, Katie Murphy, Kimberly Gilbert, and Eleni Grove in Enter Ophelia, distracted. Photo by Teresa Castracane.

I reviewed the great Kimberly Gilbert's passion project Enter Ophelia, distracted, for the Washington City Paper this week.