Email Author ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Awards

• 2009 - Kansas City Press Club Heart of America Awards, published April 3, 2008

  "The Best Story of the Year"

• 2009 - Kansas City Press Club Heart of America Awards, published April 24, 2008

  "Desert Storm"

• 2009 - Kansas City Press Club Heart of America Awards, published September 11, 2008

  "Water Logged"

• 2009 - Kansas City Press Club Heart of America Awards, published November 13, 2008

  "What's At Stake"

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2013 Stories by ALAN SCHERSTUHL

• In This is the End, It All Ends Not With a Whimper, But a Dick Joke

  published June 13, 2013

  From the peak of Anchorman to the nadir of Burt Wonderstone, the formula for studio comedies of the past 20 years has been... More >>

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  Man of Steel: Making Sense of All That Christ and Death Stuff

  published June 13, 2013

  Sometimes, there's just too damn much to say about a movie than can fit into any one review. (Even More >>

• The Purge Asks: Your Family, or This Homeless Guy?

  published June 6, 2013

  Here's a category idea for bar trivia: Collect one-sentence plot summaries of young-adult novel series and R-rated horror films, and see who... More >>

• Évocateur Considers The Mouth That Ate Itself

  published June 6, 2013

  Used to be to get famous in the right-wing-blowhard racket you had to have an act. Not today. Has anyone ever once thought, "Oh, I... More >>

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  If George R. R. Martin Wrote Every TV Show Ever

  published June 6, 2013

  George R. R. Martin took a break from killing Starks today to send us this list of the notes he would send to the producers of TV shows if he... More >>

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  In Omit the Logic, Richard Pryor Crucifies Himself, Again and Again

  published May 30, 2013

  “Least you got to see a motherfucker crucify himself,” Richard Pryor spits in the most surprising footage director Marina Zenovich... More >>

• Nostalghia: A Light That Never Goes Out

  published May 30, 2013

  A few years ago, a lit-mag editor treated me and other dinner guests to the story—almost certainly apocryphal—of another... More >>

• The End of All Things, Except Narration In The Wall

  published May 30, 2013

  Your end-times fantasy most likely says a lot about you. Adherents to the Left Behind eschatology must at some level relish the notion... More >>

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  After Earth: Smith Family Robinson

  published May 30, 2013

  The surprise twist in the new M. Night Shyamalan film is that the film is directed by M. Night Shyamalan, a fact that the movie—like the... More >>

• 'Fast & Furious 6': Oh, This Is Why We Have Car Chases

  published May 23, 2013

  There's one key truth that separates the tank-topped gearheads of the Fast and Furious movies from the rest of us. Every problem these... More >>

• Hate-Watching 'Hating Breitbart'

  published May 23, 2013

  Let's say that you and your friends get accused of being racist. And let's say there's nothing in your heart that fits that accusation. You... More >>

• There Ain't No Good Guys In 'Black Rock'

  published May 16, 2013

  Seemingly crafted to validate the fears of those conservatives who rage that the white man can't get respect on the big screen these days,... More >>

• 'Assault On Wall Street': Tom Joad Kills 'Em All

  published May 9, 2013

  Uwe Boll's rep is on the upswing, but, really, what other direction could it go? The consensus choice for the world's worst professional... More >>

• 'What Maisie Knew': The Awkward Age

  published May 2, 2013

  There are times during the affecting tumult of What Maisie Knew when you may think, "At last, a first-rate American movie about what... More >>

• Want a Vague Idea of 'Midnight's Children'? See the Movie!

  published May 2, 2013

  One of the most beguiling of the many stories all knotted up in Salman Rushdie's brilliant, baggy, exhausting 1981 novel Midnight's... More >>

• 'Mud''s Killer Matthew

  published April 25, 2013

  Has anyone ever been so perfectly cast as Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused? Sculpted entirely of charisma and cheekbones, yet... More >>

• A Boy and His Drone In 'Oblivion'

  published April 18, 2013

  The good news: Here's a lavish, serious science-fiction picture, one that on occasion transcends big-budget hit-making convention to glance... More >>

• The Lesson Learned From 'Deceptive Practice': Never Take Your Eyes Off Him

  published April 18, 2013

  Turns out, Ricky Jay is one of those guys who has to sit in the restaurant with his back to the wall. That's not just because the... More >>

• 'It's a Disaster': Did You Bring a Dish?

  published April 11, 2013

  Perhaps the first great indie apocalypse-potluck comedy, Todd Berger's It's a Disaster aces many of the fundamentals bobbled by too... More >>

• How Does 'Jurassic Park 3D' Play When You Can't Fast Forward?

  published April 4, 2013

  "They do move in herds," Sam Neill marvels, purportedly gazing at his director's miracle dinosaurs but in reality directing his... More >>

• The Best Theories of 'Room 237'

  published March 28, 2013

  Theory: The Shining is about the genocide of Native Americans. Evidence: The Overlook Hotel's... More >>

• 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation': A Real American Miracle

  published March 28, 2013

  What must Bruce Willis have felt when he discovered that his seven or so minutes of G.I. Joe: Retaliation screen time offer much more... More >>

• 'Detour': Underground Hit

  published March 28, 2013

  Again and again, movies show you killing, but it's one in a thousand onscreen killings that might get you to feel something of what killing is... More >>

• 'Wrong' Makes a Right

  published March 28, 2013

  If real life were like Wrong, Quentin Dupieux's sweetly unnerving experiment in ambient fucked-uppedness, your phone would ring before... More >>

• The Peacekeeper

  published March 28, 2013

  Across America this weekend, wives and girlfriends will accompany their fellas to GI Joe: Retaliation, as boys-shooting-boys movies... More >>