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Something Not Played Out
I didn’t find Funny Games particularly scary on a visceral level. I’m not saying this to suggest I have a hard stomach for movies like this. I don’t. I over-think them and too often imagine what it would be like to be in the characters’ shoes. I try to freak myself out. Funny Games invites…
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One Sentence of the Aeneid
The concept for this article – reviewing a book based on one random sentence – is borrowed from an article printed in the literary magazine The Believer. Virgil’s Aeneid “A chill swept over Aeneas; his limbs went weak; he moaned in terror and stretched his hands toward heaven” (I.91-2) Hundreds of years before The Catcher…
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My, What Big Teeth You Have!
I don’t quite understand why the advertising team behind Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth decided to market it as “the most alarming cautionary tale for men … since Fatal Attraction.” The storyline of Teeth stems from the vagina dentate myth, which has emerged in many, many myths from many, many cultures. “Vagina dentate” means “toothed vagina” in…
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Week in Review
Rarely in this age of metaphysical detachment do we encounter such an utter embrace of the visceral as found in Riskay’s gift to the ages, “Smell Yo Dick”. In this piece, Riskay laments what she believes represents the steady decay of her relationship with her boyfriend. Riskay’s friends report sightings of said boyfriend in clubs…
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Bristol and Levi (Finally) Luck Out
But in all the hubbub of Bristol’s pregnancy, one major issue was almost left untouched: the question of statutory rape. Sexual abuse laws vary from state to state, and according to Alaskan laws, Levi should be in no trouble at all.
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David Mamet Talking To His Son
DM: Son, I’d like you to come over here. JOE: Come over there? DM: Yes, come over here. JOE: But yesterday you said– DM: Why don’t you come– JOE: Yesterday at Disneyland– DM: –come and sit over here. JOE: [looking at DM] Alright. [JOE approaches DM. JOE looks into his eyes. DM looks to his…
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There’s Good News and Bad News
Dad, that email you sent with your top 25 YouTube vid’s from the summer of ’08 was great.
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Playing Telephone
And the winner for the 2008 Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off is… Bill Lane!” Bill leaned into his wife for a kiss. His son beamed and Bill acknowledged the little boy’s pride with a hearty shake of his shoulder. Bill rose and to acknowledge the audience’s cheers, he smiled, clutched his enormous belt buckle between…
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Restaurants in Review
Sotto Happy Hour: Drinks That Rival Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino Though it is no replacement for the Annex, Sotto happy hour is still the best deal in town. House wine and mixed drinks are only two fifty; cocktails like the Bellinitini (peach, prosecco, mint) and the Lemon Drop Martini (lemon, sours) are only five dollars;…
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Museumologies
When I stepped into the René Magritte exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I stepped into a Magritte painting. The artist in many of his paintings depicted the ultimate “common man,” pudgy and ambivalent in bowler hat, overcoat, and cane. But Magritte placed this man in surreal contexts, like with a green…
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Breathless at 47
“All in all, I’m a dumb bastard… If you’ve got to, you’ve got to.” Thus criminal Michel Poiccard opens in a voice-over in Jean-Luc Godard’s classic 1960 film À bout de soufflé (Breathless). Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) looks up from a trashy newspaper exhibiting a tarty semi-nude, takes a few puffs from his cigarette, and hops…