Category Archives: Pop Culture

Hell on Reels

HellboyMost of the people with whom I’ve casually discussed “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” have insisted that I should put aside my prejudices — specifically my unwillingness to get suckered into another attempt at reinventing Jim Carrey’s heretofore painfully unwatchable career, first, and my aversion to watching yet another ridiculously hip music video director’s transition to the silver screen, second — so as not to miss one of the brighter offerings in this year’s crop of movies. “I was skeptical too, believe me, but it was really good,” said one of my friends last week. I just can’t do it, or at least I haven’t been able to yet, and if I do, I’m pretty sure I won’t be writing about it here unless I find it sufficiently unworthy of all the praise it’s got. Something stubborn in me finds the whole enterprise just too plainly offensive.

Continue Reading …

+

The Sum of Its Parts

SpartanIf you have a penchant for stilted, muscular dialogue illustrating the passionless relationships between men steeped in their work, then you’ll probably get a big kick out of David Mamet’s latest exercise in elaborate, procedural sleight of hand. It’s called “Spartan,” and what it boils down to is basically a Tom Clancy plot adapted with Mamet’s signature dialogue style and his almost goofy obsession with charade.

Continue Reading …

+

News Flashes

These Just InThe most consistently funny program on television is “The Daily Show with John Stewart.” For some proof, have a look at “Hail the Armies of Rove” on this page. It’s a gut-busting bit of reportage from Stephen Colbert and serves as just one example of this cast member’s remarkable comedic genius. So I was eagerly anticipating tonight’s showing of “These Just In,” which features a series of four short films from a few of the show’s staff writers. To be honest, I was mildly disappointed, as their overall hilarity was noticeably milder than just about any episode of the show they produce at their day jobs.

Continue Reading …

+

Mel Gibson, Christie Brinkley and an Anti-Trust Suit

but that’s the way it is. I understand their map usefulness. Often, a formalised exercise helps map quest me to crack a block of some kind, and often affords map quest a new way to see something. It’s a way of playing us map with the process of creation – if one lets it mapquest serve that purpose. Another example: a lot of driving directions modern composers who use Finale or similar programs maps to score their music, either on the fly or by hotels

Continue Reading …

+

Kick It

Earlier this evening I went with some friends to see “How to Kick People,” which is perhaps best described as a combination of comedic short story reading and variety show. I say ‘comedic’ rather than ‘comedy’ in an attempt to do justice to the idea that the show is not preoccupied with generating laughs in the style of an out and out comedy revue, and yet it was still remarkably funny.

Continue Reading …

+

A Very Long Fairy Tale

Once Upon a Time in the WestIf it weren’t the beginning of another crazy week at Behavior (where we’re looking to hire freelance designers, by the way), I’d spend some time writing extensive praise for Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West.” I watched it for the first time this past weekend on a newly minted DVD version, and it was magnificent. Perhaps a very brief outlining of my thoughts are in order anyway because, at heart, this is a ninety minute film stretched out to a very long two hours and forty-odd minutes.

Continue Reading …

+

Life as a Cub

TintinWhere have all the cub reporters gone? Fictional enterprises no longer seem to harbor the fantasy of underaged journalists risking life and limb in the pursuit of a hot scoop, something that seemed once to be a fairly commonplace — or at least somewhat plausible — pretext for throwing likable young adult characters into unspeakably dangerous situations.

This was the absurd and yet intoxicating premise behind the indefatigable cub reporter Tintin, the Belgian comic strip character who celebrates his 75th anniversary today. My father, who spent a good chunk of his childhood growing up in France, introduced me to the oversized collections of Tintin’s adventures when I was a kid, and I was blown away by the sure artistic hand of the character’s creator, writer and illustrator, Georges Rémi — he signed his work simply as Hergé — and I was sure then as I am now that he was some kind of genius.

Continue Reading …

+

House of Acting

House of Sand and FogVadim Perelman’s “House of Sand and Fog” begins with the very end of its story, a narrative device that has become so popular in recent cinema that it provoked in me a feeling of dread. The idea of enduring yet another movie that spends the bulk of its time in flashback has by now a tired, depleted promise to it, and I was seized, in the opening sixty seconds, with a sense that I was embarking on 126 minutes of bad cinema. And in fact, there is a good deal of this movie adaptation of Andrew Dubus III’s novel that is perfunctory and predicated on only unambitious attempts at storytelling, from its cast of not quite fleshed out supporting characters to its sometimes implausible leaps in narrative logic.

Continue Reading …

+