Drew Mackie

May 25, 2004

The Artful Dodger: Our Asses Are Taking Over the World

By Drew Mackie

We've become our own asses, people. Being called an "ass" is nothing new for me. Back when I knew it as the "a-word," it was one of the first obscenities I had ever learned. When someone's acting foolish, he or she is ca...

May 11, 2004

The Artful Dodger: Denial of Academic Excellence Should Leave Students Nonplussed

By Drew Mackie

Back in first grade or maybe even kindergarten, I learned the mathematical significance of the plus sign. That little cross somehow meant more, like when 1 + 1 meant a little more than one, or when 1 + 100 meant a lot mo...

April 29, 2004

Drew Says,

By Drew Mackie

When they cloned Dolly the lamb, I wasn't impressed. My dad's from New Zealand. I've seen sheep. They're pretty much the same - hooves, wool, pea-sized brain. I hear now they've cloned more animals, like frogs and aardva...

April 22, 2004

Battle over Spilled Blood

By Drew Mackie

Tokyo, Japan: Uma Thurman slices through throngs of Yakuza, severing heads and literally painting the room red. Jerusalem, about 2,000 years earlier: Jesus Christ shakes in agony as Roman soldiers pound those infamous ni...

April 15, 2004

Kill Bill Vol. 2 | Here Comes the Bride, Again

By Drew Mackie

If nothing else, "Kill Bill" delivers what its title promises - Bill dies. His killer, the straw-haired gladiatrix known as the Bride, walks away, finally free of the wrath that drives her quest for revenge through both ...

March 31, 2004

The Artful Dodger: Leno Earns Big Bucks While Others Take It on the Chin

By Drew Mackie

TV reminds me that the world is unjust. Everyday I watch the news and hear from Mr. Newsie Newsman that innocents die in terrorist attacks, that the financial chasm between the rich and the poor widens steadily and that ...

March 4, 2004

Jesus’ Savior

By Drew Mackie

If you don't like a Jesus movie, does that mean you'll go to hell? As a product of the penguin house - that's Catholic school to you heathens - a new movie about the big J.C. perked my interest.

February 26, 2004

The Artful Dodger: An Ugly Presidential Race

By Drew Mackie

Will America elect an ugly president? I know it sounds like a silly question. A scan over a gallery of our nation's past leaders will reveal a host of presidents whom the American public clearly did not elect on looks. T...

February 19, 2004

The Coral | Magic and Medicine | Columbia

By Drew Mackie

It wouldn't take much convincing to make some uninitiated music fan believe that the Coral was one of the best bands of the late '60s. Their sound, you could say, captured the essence of Britain's transition from the '60...

February 12, 2004

The Artful Dodger: First the Flowers Bleed, Then You Spread Your Seed

By Drew Mackie

Whenever people consider the victims of Valentine's Day, they either think of the boneheaded - those who blow their paychecks on pink and red foolery like those chalky conversation hearts - or the socially untouchable - ...

February 3, 2004

The Artful Dodger: Stupid Thoughts While Pondering the Essence of Idiocy

By Drew Mackie

It has come to my attention that some of you are stupid - that is, the slow, the dense, the willfully ignorant, the ones who just don't get it. I think we can all agree that the university, an institute of higher learnin...

January 22, 2004

Welcome to Jack-O-Land

By Drew Mackie

How about Michael Jackson, fallen superstar, purported kiddiediddler and the 21st century's incarnation of the boogeyman? I think that about nails it.

January 13, 2004

He Said, She Said: Leave the Heavy Make-up for Bozo the Clown, Okay?

By Drew Mackie

Painted ladies of Isla Vista, douse your Jackson Pollock faces in turpentine. I'm here to liberate you out from beneath your layers of makeup.

January 8, 2004

Big Fish | Burton’s Film Baits But Doesn’t Bite

By Drew Mackie

The dark branches of the trees on the poster for "Big Fish" contrast against their light background. This sort of coupling has become a chromatic trademark for director Tim Burton.

January 5, 2004

The Artful Dodger: The Cultural Aftershocks

By Drew Mackie

I spent Winter Break in a television trance. But whenever I broke away from VH1's marathon sessions of C-grade celebrities telling me what to remember from the '70s and '80s, I checked out the newspaper to see if anythin...

December 4, 2003

Tipping Sorrow’s Scales

By Drew Mackie

In the closing scenes of "21 Grams," one of the main characters lies in a hospital bed and recalls the urban legend that the 21 grams a human body supposedly loses at the moment of death is the loss of the soul.