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Tom Carson

Tom Carson won two National Magazine Awards during his stint as Esquire's "Screen" columnist and has been nominated twice more as GQ's movie reviewer. Formerly a staff writer at LA Weekly and The Village Voice, he is the author of Gilligan's Wake (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2003) and Daisy Buchanan's Daughter.

Recent Articles

A Dark Knight for Romney?

Don't believe Limbaugh—the most recent Batman movie is an epic for the 1%

Tom CarsonJul 20, 2012
(Courtesy of www.thedarkknightrises.com)

Stop me if you've heard this news flash once or twice before, but Rush Limbaugh got it gloriously wrong. On Tuesday, the Porcine One took to the airwaves to froth about the coincidence—no, wait, there's no such thing in Limbaugh-land—that the villain of The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, a homophone for "Bain." Plainly, this was a case of Romney-bashing propaganda by a Hollywood nefariously in league with the White House.

"You may think it's ridiculous," Rush said stoutly, locking a barn door through which whole herds of ponies have fled over the years. "I'm just telling you this is the kind of stuff the Obama campaign is lining up. The kind of people who would draw this comparison are the kind of people they are campaigning to."

Europe on Five Characters a Day

Woody Allen's latest travelogue is sprightlier than you'd expect.

Tom CarsonJun 30, 2012

 

Starting with its generic title, predictably eclectic cast, and cornball opening tune ("Volare," for Pete's sake), To Rome With Love looks like it's going to be another of Woody Allen's paint-by-numbers late-life divertissements. Those picture-postcard settings? In the bag. Not to mention that loose ensemble of coatrack characters—which bauble of your genius will you hang on me, Woody?—among whom he can parcel out his latest idle thoughts on art, love, and fate while indulging his septuagenarian fascination with the mating habits of comely young people.  

Pixar's Take on Kafka

Brave tackles the Scottish countryside and family tensions in a poignant—if slightly by-the-books—way.

Tom CarsonJun 22, 2012
(AP Photo/Disney/Pixar)

He that hath children hath given hostages to Disney, as Francis Bacon would no doubt have put it if he'd lived in our time. That's why the latest reason I'm glad little Thomasina Carson doesn't exist—there are many, and Justin Bieber's existence is the least of them—is the woe I'd feel at watching her innocently toddle off to see Brave.

It's not that the movie's bad, understand. After a shaky start and despite some later missteps, it turns into one of Pixar's best, and definitely one of the most surprising. In the wake of, among others, Up and Wall-E—well, the latter's first half, anyway—presumably we can all agree that's no trivial claim. 

The Blander Bush

HBO's 41 asks none of the hard questions about George H.W. Bush's uninspired career

Tom CarsonJun 14, 2012
(Wikimedia/Reagan Library Archives)

Premiering tonight on the channel that just got through bringing us Season Two of Game of Thrones—believe me, you'll miss its brute realism—41 couldn't be a tenderer, more wart-free portrait of George H.W. Bush if one of his grandkids had put it together for a private screening on Poppy's 88th birthday. Which was, as it happens, Tuesday, and many happy returns. But that's no excuse for HBO to air nominal documentarian Jeffrey Roth's (who is he, you ask? Beats me.) feature-length Hallmark card.

Mad Men's Shark Week

This season hasn't lived up to our reviewer's high expectations.

Tom CarsonJun 01, 2012
(AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Maybe an excess of cultishness will just always disgruntle me. It's not like I've read every last online analysis of last week's episode of Mad Men—of course not, because I'd still be at it at age 90. But I got irked anyway when I couldn't turn up any heretics willing to opine that the big shock of Christina Hendricks's Joan consenting to be pimped out by her bosses at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce for the sake of landing the Jaguar account was kind of, how you say, jiveass. 

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