***You can find the original, 200+ movie rating list here.***
*As list 1 became laggy with length, I decided to begin a new list of movie ratings and mini-reviews.
All rankings are personal and combine my own enjoyment, my opinions on the quality of acting, story, effects, visuals, dialogue, etc.
Movies are rated on (1)–(99) scale.
RT = Rotten Tomatoes, a shorthand I frequently use. The critic/audience score is displayed as (75/63) (for example), and is the score at the time I am writing the rating.
To put the scale into the “stars system,” think 90–99 = 5 stars. 80–89…
By Ben D’Alessio
It’s April, and that means it’s time to get my (way too early) summer reading list together. The following picks are books I’ve read since the last list and think deserve notoriety for any number of reasons. Besides #1, they aren’t in any particular order.
Leave a comment for more info on any of the books.
Also, feel free to check out any of my novels, which can be enjoyed any time of year.
(Chapter Excerpt)
On the fringes of the horizon, across the sprawling pink poppy fields of Battle-Zone II, Jane watched through her binoculars as the gaunt viro stumbled and fell to the dirt, far away from the pickup point. …
By Ben D’Alessio
It wasn’t love at first sight, I have to be honest. You wanted to give me free money (you wanted to give everyone free money!) and I was skeptical about that. You were in the way, I was told. You shouldn’t be taken seriously. You were new, fresh, an outsider, and they were frightened of you because of it. Well… I have a thing for outsiders and I wanted to give you a chance. That’s how you won me over (it didn’t bother me that you sound like Kermit the Frog). And when I fell, I fell…
By Ben D’Alessio
Kamala Harris is the villain in those crime documentaries you all love so much. I have a general distaste for politicians but can overlook most issues and hypocrisies — especially when they are deep in a candidate’s past — when it comes time to vote. Oftentimes, the moral purity being pushed in our culture simply does not, should not, and cannot apply to politics — vote for least-bad and hope for the best.
But Kamala Harris has played a significant role in ruining too many lives, using her power as the District Attorney of San Francisco and…
By Ben D’Alessio
The saying goes: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The lesser-known saying (lesser-known because I just made it up) goes: “Pain and suffering is the evil uncle of change.”
For too many a Saturday and/or Sunday morning, I curled up on my couch, the steam from my coffee twirling into the air, as my head pounded and stomach turned over. …
by Ben D’Alessio
It was a pleasure — and morally right and just — to burn. From the ashes of not just Minneapolis, Portland, and Kenosha, but all of the (former) United States, a new society can be constructed that will address systematic racism and other systems of oppression. The new to-be-named society (I like “Progressium”) will not have police brutality because there will be no police.
This ambitious plan is attainable, but only if the proceeding blueprint is followed in a precise and unrelenting manner.
The first, and probably most popular step, is to GET RID OF WHITE PEOPLE…
by Ben D’Alessio
By Ben D’Alessio
Step 1: Everyone takes a 23andMe.
It was a fun experiment. We Americans started as a collection of pious pioneers (who hanged the occasional witch or two) and cash-crop entrepreneurs who continued to grow inedible tobacco over food even when our settlements were starving to death — it’s called an investment. We took a loose collection of colonies and united them to kick some English ass and then un-united them to kick our own asses. Eventually, after teaming-up with the English (and their associates across the pond), we began our world tour to Europe, Asia, and even…
By Ben D’Alessio
It’s weird right now. Check out one of these books I’ve read since the list last April and get you some normalcy, or some escape, or get weirder, if that’s what you’re into.
They’re in no particular order, except for the first one, which was my favorite of the year, probably. They’re not the only nine I’ve enjoyed, just the ones I decided to write about. I post each book I read on my Instagram if you’d like to scroll and check out any others.
Author of the novels: Binge Until Tragedy, Lunchmeat, The Neon God, & 6 Harlots: Rebirth of a Nation | Linwood, NJ https://www.bendalessio.com/