Hi, everybody! Nice to see you all hanging out here again. Here’s some stuff I’ve been thinking about recently: Is Homeland good, bad, offensive, or some combination of all three? I can’t help but think that if I were (a) Pakistani, (b) bipolar, or (c) CIA agent, I’d really hate this show. It’s so completely divorced from reality […]
Archive for the ‘Film’ category
Weekend recs
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti (2008) A plucky orphan with one hand and a deep conscience navigates colonial New England with a supporting cast of grotesque, mysterious and occasionally redeemable characters. Among them are a loyal murderer, an artistic dwarf, an ailing widow and a scoundrel lover, all crowding and competing in a vibrant […]
Weekend recs
The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009), dir. Alex Van Warmerdam (available on Netflix Instant) Do NOT watch the trailer or read a review — all chock-full of spoilers — before seeing this movie. The pleasure is in the plot surprises revealed casually. I will tell you that it’s set in the Dutch countryside near […]
Weekend recs
This is the End, dir. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (2013) There’s something delightful about actors playing themselves as complete assholes, and the guys (and a few girls, including Emma Watson) in this movie are truly over-the-top — cursing, flailing, selfish, obtuse, wildly egotistical maniacs. If you see one movie all year with Michael Cera […]
Weekend recs
Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, by Jefferson Cowie (2010) Like a What’s the Matter with Kansas? with liner notes, this book’s hook is how Cowie reads cultural products of the time as reflecting shifts in working class identity from the mid ’60s through the early ’80s. Paul Schrader’s […]
Weekend recs
Orphan Black (BBC America) Want to know why unknown Tatiana Maslany beat out Claire Danes, Vera Farmiga, and Elisabeth Moss this week at the Critics’ Choice Awards? Then beg, borrow, or steal your way to Orphan Black, Season One. Sarah discovers a doppelganger committing suicide by subway. Identity theft leads down a rabbit hole of […]
Weekend recs
Hollywood Lesbians by Boze Hadleigh (1994): Celebrity gossip is only enjoyable when the subjects themselves are compelling. Hadleigh interviewed mostly closeted lesbians from Hollywood’s Golden Age, a few from behind the camera like Edith Head, and got startlingly frank — if sometimes coded — responses out of almost all of them. It’s dizzying to watch […]
Weekend recs
The perfect teenage love story is about discovery: finding self, a beloved, a messed up world and the promise that love can save the day. Warm Bodies presents this satisfying combination through a zombie Romeo and a living Juliet, outcast from their respective houses, who connect over vintage music and teach the grownups how to […]
The original underground superstar
Late last week Taylor Mead — the Lower East Side legend widely heralded (by himself and others) as the original underground film star — passed away in Colorado at age 88. From the Times obituary: Mr. Mead was the quintessential Downtown figure. He read his poems in a Bowery bar, walked as many as 80 […]
