All about me.
To begin with, I just want to say that I think it’s stupid that I have to do this. I know it’s supposed to make me rehabilitate or whatever, but I really, really don’t feel like doing it, and to be perfectly honest it seems kind of petty. I mean, …
Recently, a number of seemingly unconnected cultural conversations took place which seemed to me to have a common thread running through them. While I don’t necessarily think they add up to any grand indictment of the Way We Live Today (I’m always distrustful of anyone who cherry-picks a few isolated …
So swollen with contempt and pride is our current political body that it is fairly assured, if the Democrats pointed out that the sun rises in the east, the Republicans would instantly counter that it actually rises in the West, and accuse the left of Chinese Communist sympathies for their …
I know it’s hard. I know how hard it is. And I know how easy it would be not to try, because that’s the way the world is built: for you not to try. For you to give up. The world will always give you a million reasons not to …
The first one I did was the television. It was just after Audrey died; maybe two, three weeks after. I was sitting at the end of the couch, where I always sat. I still hadn’t broken the habit of looking over at the green chair; that was where she’d be …
The first of an occasional series of posts about crime, both in its real-world manifestations and its portrayal in popular culture. The title of the series comes from the great 1950 noir The Asphalt Jungle, in which the moneyman Roland Emmerich describes crime as “a left-handed form of human endeavor”. *** …
Sofia Coppola, after an initial period of wunderkind delight, seems to have settled into the role of a director that people want to like more than they actually like her. She followed up the very good The Virgin Suicides with the great Lost in Translation, but that was chased by the problematic Marie Antoinette …
Dealing with the death of famous people is an emotionally thorny proposition. No matter how much you might have cared for their work, you didn’t really know them, and it seems almost intrusive to mourn them the way you would a friend or a family member. And, of course, death comes …
And now, ladies and gentlemen — but especially ladies! — it’s time for an exciting set of Wisdom Flirtinis from the adorable pink leather-bound notebook of Betty Ray Insensata, the Feminist Who’s Unclear on the Concept! “A woman without a man is like Lance Armstrong without a bicycle.” “People call me …
For someone who loves crime drama, downbeat ’70s cinema, and stories of doomed losers as much as I do, it took me an inexplicably long time to get around to seeing Peter Yates’ foundational tale of a bottom-feeding Boston mob hanger-on. The Friends of Eddie Coyle never seemed to crop …
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Obama, Vice President Biden, Senator McConnell, Dr. von Hellish, fellow citizens: We observe today not a victory over death but a celebration of life — symbolizing an end as well as a beginning; signifying renewal as well as change. My return to the world …
Patrick Hamilton was a gentrified British version of Jim Thompson: a disreputable alcoholic who supported himself by writing twisted pulp novels with an even bloodier jagged edge than most. Like Thompson, he marked his work by a seedy personal perspective and a talent for the sudden appearance of the bizarre …
Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker breaks a lot of the ‘rules’ of film noir, and in doing so, it sometimes scans like a prescient warning bell of the post-Psycho revolution in crime drama than it does a product of the 1950 B-picture system. This is by no means meant as a criticism; …
Le Pont du Nord, which I saw earlier this week in a gorgeous new 35mm print at the Northwest Film Forum, is a baffling creature; neither a straightforward narrative nor an entirely experimental impressionistic piece, it’s hard to figure out while you’re watching it and even harder to suss with …
“Saint’s Day”: Eric is disappointed when none of his friends will help him celebrate his Saint’s Day. They point out that the whole idea of a Saint’s Day is pretty stupid, and that at any rate, he is not Catholic. He vows to develop an affectation that will make the …
