Analog This: Five Great Mad Men Episodes to Prepare for the End

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The college freshman dorm room poster of the future. Image via Business Insider

It’s the beginning of the end as we know it.

Tonight marks the first episode of the seventh season of Mad Men. While this is the last season of Mad Men, it will go on a little longer than expected, given that this season has been split in two halves. Splitting final chapters in two is a popular trend now, and it is the only thing that Breaking BadNymphomaniac, and Divergent have in common.

The sixth season of Mad Men was a bit of a creative letdown that ended with a finale that promised a very important season to come. I am interested to see how these next two seasons will be structured. Either way, each episode will be incredibly important. Now that there is an end in sight, that means that each episode will be building to something bigger. Expect some important decisions, emotional revelations, and internet fan theories that prove to be completely wrong.

You still have a few more hours until the new season of Mad Men premieres. I decided to spend that time thinking about which episodes mattered to me the most. This show’s very best episodes prove that Mad Men is more than just a show about an ad agency in the 1960s. 

Maybe it is premature to be choosing the best episodes of Mad Men already, but I like racking up Internet points, people. Here are what I consider to be the five best episodes of Mad Men to date:

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Captain America: The Winter’s Soldier, Game of Thrones Premiere, Colbert Replacing Letterman

Episode 3: Ian, Cassie and special guest host Mike Rogers (Professor of Comics, Syracuse University), talk about Captain America: The Winter’s Soldier, the Game of Thrones season 4 premiere, Colbert replacing Letterman on The Late Show, James Franco’s newest scandal and much more…

Movie Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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A man and a woman as partners? In a movie? Do you think there’ll be sexual tension between them? Image via Business Insider

The differences between Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latest Captain America installment, shows how much the Marvel Universe has changed and expanded in just three years.

The Winter Solider happens to combine both the worlds of Captain America and The Avengers: half of it is a promotion for a bunch of Marvel stories that I have little interest in, and the other half is a Captain America movie. Leave it to Disney to replace traditional product placement with promotion of their own products.

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Hey Entertainment Weekly, I Have a Few Words for You…

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Because movies were bad in other times, too. Image via EW

Entertainment Weekly is not dead yet, but looks to be slowly marching itself to its own grave.

Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly announced that it would be laying off veteran film critic Owen Gleiberman, who has been around since the magazine’s inception. This comes a year after their other longtime film critic, Lisa Schwarzbaum left, and just weeks after the publication laid off other prominent staff members, and announced a complete remodeling of their website, which would now allow for community posting.

In short, this entails that the site will now be like BuzzFeed, in that anybody can post on it. These community posters will be paid in “prestige,” instead of, you know, money.

All of this news is dangerous for anybody who actually plans to make a living writing about film, television, music, and books. Time to pull out our sharpest hyperbolic knives!

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Movie Review: Bad Words

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Michael Bluth is threatening me! Image via Apple Trailers

What can I say? I have a soft spot for adults cursing at little kids, and those kids cursing right back at them.

Bad Words is the story of Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman), a 40-year-old loser who uses a loophole to compete in a national spelling bee. Guy Trilby is about as unlikable a person as possible. He has no ambition, curses to no end, and is mean to both women and children alike. But Jason Bateman is such an awesome dude in general that he almost dares you to like Trilby.

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Ranking the Films of Darren Aronofsky

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Darren Aronfosky: Clearly proud to be from Brooklyn. Image via Zimbio

Ever since I was first urged by a friend to see Pi at the ripe age of 13, Darren Aronofsky has been one of my favorite modern directors.

With each film he makes, Aronofsky explores bodily mutilation, addiction, and obsession in nearly all of his works. While each film is thematically similar, he breaks enough new ground with every film he makes that it feels new each time.

Even when he is not involved in every aspect, Aronofsky still feels like the auteur. Also, you can thank him for allowing us to imagine Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis making out at will now.

I decided to put up his latest effort, Noah (which cleaned up at the box office this weekend), with the rest of his filmography. Here is how I would rank every Darren Aronofsky film (from worst to best):

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Movie Review: Noah

Russell Crowe as NoahI thought Noah would be the kind of film that gets a love-it-or-hate-it reaction. Instead, Noah tells us to take back all of our preconceived notions. It is big and insane like any Biblical story is, and boy is it proud of it.

Noah is the sixth film by Darren Aronofsky. If he can turn this into a big hit, then he will be granted virtually all of the creative freedom he wants for a very long time. In a lot of the Noah reviews, I have seen words like “impersonal” pop up. Noah might not be a beautiful character study like The Wrestler, but that does not mean that it is any further away from Aronofsky’s heart. After all, he has been dreaming about making this film since he wrote a poem about it in grade school.

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Movie Review: Muppets Most Wanted

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“Hey Kermit! Did you know that there is no God and the Bible is a lie?” Image via YouTube

Like any good Muppets movie should do, Muppets Most Wanted begins by announcing what it is to the world. “We’re a sequel, dammit, so like us or don’t like us!” But it’s the Muppets, and the Muppets are impossible to hate. If you were looking for a Muppet movie that is equal parts charming, funny, and chaotic, then Muppets Most Wanted will give you everything that you are looking for.

Muppets Most Wanted picks up almost directly where the last movie left off, with the Muppets reunited and famous once again, but this time without the help of Jason Segel or Amy Adams. Celebrity cameo numero uno is Ricky Gervais as Dominic Badguy, which is French for “good man,” as their new manager. Celebrity cameos in any given Muppets movie are always exciting. I wait for the cameo like people wait for the scary moments in a horror movie.

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