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

• 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 The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, the formula for studio comedies of the last 20 years... More >>

• The Purge Asks Which Life Is Worth More

  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 >>

• 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... More >>

• What Maisie Knew Might Be a Great Film About Childhood

  published May 30, 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 >>

• Ricky Jay Did Something Amazing as You Glanced at These Words

  published May 30, 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 >>

• 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 has... 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 >>

• The Sublime Dumb Play of Fast and Furious 6

  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 >>

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

  published May 9, 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 >>

• Matthew McConaughey Is Great, Again, in Mud

  published May 9, 2013

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

• Tom Cruise's Oblivion Is Grand Until It's Not

  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 >>

• It's a Disaster Contradicts Its Title in Every Way

  published April 18, 2013

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

• Django Unchained: The Most Moving Scene Quentin Tarantino Has Yet Filmed

  published April 18, 2013

  Half a year later, now on Blu-ray and DVD, Django Unchained is still kicking up shit, this time via cross-media trickle-down. TV's LL... More >>

• 42: Jackie Robinson Biopic Nearly Brings Its Hero to Life

  published April 11, 2013

  A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Brian Helgeland's Jackie Robinson bio 42 finds a politic... More >>

• Jurassic Park 3D: How Does a Classic 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 Delicious Absurdity of Wrong

  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 >>

• A Real American Miracle: Could a G.I. Joe Movie Actually Almost Be Good?

  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 >>

• f You Must See The Host, Please Bring a Young Man with You

  published March 28, 2013

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

• Philip Roth Unmasked Reveals Our Most Wicked Writer as a Charmer

  published March 21, 2013

  Here's a tale that explains everything: A young Philip Roth, trying to shove his teen brain through Ulysses, is struck by a passage... More >>

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  Here are Five Awesome/Crazy Theories About The Shining from Room 237

  published March 21, 2013

  Like the blood that gushes forth from the elevators of the Overlook Hotel, brilliant/ridiculous theories of what Stanley Kubrick's The... More >>

• Burt Wonderstone Vanishes What Steve Carell's Best At

  published March 14, 2013

  Steve Carell's gift is for men who might drown in their own obliviousness. Like his Daily Show reporter or The Office's Michael... More >>

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  In Top of the Lake, Peggy Olson Goes to Hell

  published March 14, 2013

  Elisabeth Moss’s face is far from the only reason to savor Top of the Lake, Jane Campion’s smart, bracing, hugely... More >>

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  Other Ozzes, Great and Terrible (But Mostly Terrible)

  published March 7, 2013

  Twenty minutes into the first full-length movie based on L. Frank Baum's most beloved novel, a duck pukes into the face of Larry Semon, the... More >>

• Werner Herzog Helps Out With the Excellent Happy People

  published February 28, 2013

  Calling Happy People: A Year in the Taiga a Werner Herzog film is something like calling the dozen books released in 2012 with James... More >>

• Beautiful Creatures Is a Ravishing Chastity Fantasy

  published February 14, 2013

  Here's a question you can spit back next time someone complains that our popular culture is depraved: "Then why are our high school witches,... More >>