Krzysztof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Love opens with a close up of hands, wrists bandaged. Another hand attempts to caress them but they in turn are stopped by a third party. The scene's significance will become apparent later. The film proper begins: we witness 19-year-old Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) break into what appears to be a school and steal a small telescope. He sets the small scope up in the bedroom he rents from a friend's mother and spies on Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska), an artist living in an apartment on the opposite side of the courtyard. Tomek is clearly obsessed...
Going out to eat and drink in New York City, especially if you're a bit of food reviews junkie like myself, there is always this lingering feeling that there's someplace hotter and hipper than where you are. But as I stood in the upstairs bar area at Spice Market in the Meatpacking District last Saturday night, after Amanda Hesser published a rave review in Wednesday's New York Times, I realized I was at the epicenter of the buzz. And a word to the wise, at the epicenter of the buzz, everyone is staring at everyone else trying to determine if...
I just saw this great Rosecrans Baldwin/Danny Gregory piece in The Morning News about Baldwin's Brooklyn neighbors. It's a true cliche about New York that despite its size, it's quite insular, particularly within neighborhoods. You end up seeing a lot of the same people over and over again -- sometimes acknowledging each other's presence, sometimes not. If I had any artistic talent, these are the neighbors I'd draw: 1. The aging punk-rocker in a similarly-aging Ramones t-shirt, fine shoulder-length curly yellow hair, and a limp, from my old neighborhood in Chelsea. I always saw him (from my balcony) crossing...
I will never buy lighter fluid again! Sunday I went to a cookout and was introduced to fatwood -- a more effective and environmentally friendly way to start up a charcoal grill, camp fire, or fireplace. Fatwood Sticks vs. Lighter Fluid: made from renewable resouce:resin filled pinewood stumps made from non-renewable petroleum smells pleasantly of burning wood smells of old garages and gas stations burns easily and steadily,leaving coals hot creates a brief fireball,leaving coals unaffected $4 per box:enough to start at least six fires $2 per bottle:enough to start at most two fires as harmless as a stick(except more...
It's said that Europeans typically ask "Why?" while Americans ask "Why not?" Maybe that's why they wind up with classy icons like the Eiffel Tower, which was originally called "useless and monstrous," and we end up with a 305-foot fiberglass statue of Abraham Lincoln. The city fathers of Lincoln, Illinois want the statue to lord over their town like a mutant prairie dog, visible for 20 miles and costing $40 million. They're still looking for funding. Some might say a colorful collossus of the assassinated emancipator spilling watermelon juice onto the town might be in poor taste. At least this...
I'm quite excited. Today is my big court appearance. Not as a defendant (they'll never catch me!) but as a juror. What's got me really excited is the hope that my experience will be something like Pauly Shore's in the 1995 movie "Jury Duty." You've got to watch the trailer and get excited about "lifestyles of the rich and sequestered."...
Gawker speculates that author Amy Bloom is responsible for an anonymous piece in Salon lamenting the state of publishing today. The unnamed literary sourpuss complains that being an even moderately successful fiction writer doesn't pay the bills or guarantee a future. While we sympathize with the plight of the semi-successful writer forced to shill for Weight Watchers, maybe it's time to put all this in perspective. Since my illustrious and more literary co-editor is away visiting country mice, I thought I'd post a letter she brought to my attention. In 1803, Jane Austen sold the manuscript of Northanger Abbey, then...
No one likes to be teased and taunted. Especially apes. Yeah, not even apes can take two teenagers throwing rocks and ice at them. That's why Jabari, a gorilla living at the Dallas Zoo, escaped from his cage last week and attacked three people before getting a taste of zookeeper justice. Wouldn't it be great if there were a news service that only ran stories about monkeys? Well get those opposable thumbs ready, because there is! Monkeywire delivers monkey news once a week. If you've never sympathized with Homer Simpson's desire for a helper monkey ("PRAY FOR MOJO..."), then watch...
Oh no! One of my favorite Indian dishes, chicken tikka masala, frequently contains "excessive levels of three chemicals linked to hyperactivity in children, allergies, asthma, migraine and even cancer." And here I thought that glowing atomic red color was just a symbol of its yummyness, like the appealing pink of Hostess Snoballs. Wait a minute... could they be bad for you too?...
19-year-old Jacek (Miroslaw Baka) wanders aimlessly about Warsaw. He cares nothing about those around him, pushing a man down in a public restroom, dropping a rock off an overpass into traffic. Having coffee in a cafe, he works on cutting a piece of rope down to a suitable length for use as a garrote. A middle aged taxi driver (Jan Tesarz) cleans his cab outside his apartment building. He ogles a young woman working a produce truck and denies a fare to a married couple looking for a ride. He honks his car horn to frighten two passing dogs...
In August of 1996, presidential hopeful John Kerry wasn’t making national headlines. He was, however, busy spearheading a damning investigation into one of our government’s dirtiest secrets....
A veteran anti-terrorism official who served under Bush accuses his former boss of ignoring the threat of terrorism until September 11, 2001. Reagan appointee Richard Clarke described asking Condoleeza Rice on January 24, 2001, to call for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack." Yet in nearly 100 formal national security meetings before 9/11, terrorism was only the topic twice. And there was also the Hart-Rudman commission's warning in January 2001. And Newsweek has a story on Ashcroft's Justice Department's curtailing a program to monitor al-Qaida suspects in the United States in order to battle drug trafficking....
Walking a fine line between narratively abstract art movie and genre filmmaking, Olivier Assayas's demonlover occasionally wanders a bit too far in one direction at the sake of the other. Sheer directorial verve keeps the project from falling apart; the movie may be a bit messy at times, but so are the the themes and ideas it explores. Paris-based media conglomerate Volf Group is in the process of buying out Tokyo Anime, a company already producing successful animated porn and looking to expand in to a 3-D video game style variation that will revolutionize the industry. Two competing companies are...
First, everyone (including me) and her parakeet is going to be seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind this weekend. Here's a smattering of reviews: Over at Slate, David Edlestein calls ESotSM "the best movie I've seen in a decade." Salon's Stephanie Zacharek is slightly less enthusiastic. Although she too liked the film, she's frustrated by its "bag of ironic tricks." Also in the "enjoyed, with reservations" camp is The Times' Elvis Mitchell, who found that "this angular and intelligent romantic comedy isn't entirely consistent. Even as you laugh, it's a movie you admire more than love." The New Yorker's...
Elizabeth Peyton is a conceptual artist masquerading as a painter. She is most famous for painting images of Kurt Cobain and Leonardo DiCaprio and other pop icons. Peter Schejdahl, reviewing the current show at the Whitney for the New Yorker, describes Peyton as "the moral center of the Biennial." Peyton's work is charming and very likeable. Its small scale (her paintings are usually less than 20 inches tall or wide) and recognizable subject matter make the work inviting. She has certain skills as a colorist and decorative designer in the tradition of Matisse and David Hockney, with whom she shares...
A Hollywood legend has fallen. Oscar-winning actress and clenched-fist fireball Mercedes McCambridge has died at age 87. Although she's famous for being the demonic voice of Linda Blair in "The Exorcist," my favorite role for McCambridge was as the repressed coil of lust, greed, and envy that she played in "Johnny Guitar." The role required her to match the assured power of Joan Crawford, and McCambridge was more than up to the task. Her frenzied voice, frantic movements, and revenge-fueled righteousness was the perfect compliment to Crawford's steady solitude. McCambridge began in the days of radio, and appeared in at...
Donald Rumsfeld says it's "folklore" that the administration ever said Iraq was an imminent threat. Luckily, Thomas Friedman was on hand to remind the Secretary of Defense about the record. MoveOn.org wants congress to censure President Bush for deceiving the public about Iraq's WMD. For those with any doubt about the administration's statements on the "imminent threat," here's a handy little compilation, and a more exhaustive summation....
Via ScaryNY, a press release from Westminster, UK, that warns about the Three Filths that threaten our streets: The equivalent of two million pints of urine is collected from the streets of London every year. That's just the amount that makes it to the ever increasing number of urinals installed by Westminster City Council to combat the problem of street urination. Westminster City Council has launched its Three Filths campaign to address the problem on our streets. Everyday our street cleaners face the scourge of urine, vomit and excreta, cleaning up 300 pools of vomit every weekend and 6 deposits...
Slate has an optimistic story about the changing fads of New York apartment architecture. Author Alex Marshall notes: "Meier's Perry Street and Pasqarelli's Porter House buildings have sold out at prices per square foot considerably higher than average. This may prompt more developers to realize that adding creative, original architecture can mean more money in their pockets, and this may eventually improve the skyline and streets of this city and others." Yes, and this will lead to a golden age of New York architecture where everyone pays a reasonable rent. And no neighbors will ever catch a rat on a...
Movern Callar (Samantha Morton) awakens Christmas morning to find her writer boyfriend dead in a pool of blood, lying in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen. He has committed suicide because, as his note to Morvern on his computer indicates, "it just felt like the right thing to do." Morvern doesn't call the police, she doesn't freak out (at least not in a traditional sense). She opens her presents: a leather jacket, a cigarette lighter, and a mix tape that will provide much of the accompanying soundtrack for the rest of the film. Then she goes...
Adam Gopnik reviews a few histories of Times Square in the latest New Yorker. Definitely a must-read. The myth they want to dispel is that the cleanup of Times Square in the nineties was an expression of Mayor Giuliani’s campaign against crime and vice, and of his companion tendency to accept a sterilized environment if they could be removed, and that his key corporate partner in this was the mighty Disney, which led the remaking of West Forty-second Street as a theme park instead of an authentic urban street. As Traub and Sagalyn show, this is nearly the reverse of...
Isn't it great when architecture and food collide? No, not the towers of food at Gramercy Tavern. On the way to lunch today I took a look at the models for New York's 2012 Olympic bid. Several people wondered who has won the bid for 2008, and what their village will look like. Wonder no further! Take a look at the upcoming Athens 2004 Olympic Village before checking out San Francisco's Sasaki Associates plan for Beijing 2008. There's no clear victor in the battle to transform Queens in eight years. Henning Larsens Tegnestue has some nice touches (windmills!) and their...
Just because the NY Times describes this year's Whitney Biennial as "easily the best in some time," don't expect big changes in the kinds of work that are shown. The Biennial is always about the art world, and the art world has been astray for a long, long time. But since there's so much wrong about the show, I'd like to point out what's right. I'll be returning to look at many of these artists again, and probably revise my opinions. But here are my highlights. Amy Cutler uses surrealistic imagery (like women's torsos on bicycle wheels) and trees in...
Even though this is a useless rant--as John McCain's chief of staff has said, "Senator McCain will not be a candidate for vice president in 2004"--a Kerry-McCain ticket is an especially wonderful flight of fancy. Consider first the symbolic meaning of a Kerry-McCain ticket: a coalition of Democrats and Republicans fighting together to heal a scarred system. The policy would be, of necessity, centrist; McCain would tactfully remind Kerry that he's for free trade and wants a free Iraq, and together, this super duo would run on balancing the budget and finishing McCain's work on campaign finance reform. In addition,...
Very quick little story. I was just returning a car to the Hertz on E. 24th, and this guy (apparently a regular) was exclaiming to the Hertz lady about how the customers at the 24th St. Hertz are so much nicer than the ones at the 76th St. Hertz. To prove his point, he told the lady about a time he was there when Joan Rivers was waiting for a car. Apparently, Joan had a major fit about the service (quelle surprise!) and threw a pen at a Hertz employee, hitting him in the eye, screaming, "I'm Joan Rivers! I...
Now that I'm recovered from inadvertently poisoning my body with one deadly toxin, it's time to pour another one in. For those in NYC, there will be a "live-online" Islay scotch whisky tasting at d.b.a., 41 First Avenue, this Sunday (3/14) at 4pm. Editors from Slate, the New York Times, and NPR will be there for commentary and insight. A bunch of reporters drunk at a bar and calling it work? Yeah, that's never happened. Be sure to read Slate's introduction to the wonders of peat before you go....
Funny fuck Todd Levin thinks he's fucking funny translating the arty film descriptions for the New York Underground Film Festival into advice for the everyday filmgoer. Isn't mocking the humorless kind of like beating up a cripple? "…an ode to lights and color" "Even my closest friends and family will have second thoughts about attending this film." "…exaggerates the clichés of femininity and men in power." Get ready for 75 minutes of women throwing up and the men who constantly try to rape them. And isn't a cliché – if presented without sufficient context – already something of an exaggeration...
The folks over at Flak just reviewed "100 Suns," a photography book featuring nuclear blasts. Over at Metro Pictures gallery in Chelsea, Robert Longo is showing his charcoal drawings of Nagasaki, the Marshall Islands, and other atomic detonations. And Pakistan just tested its first missile that's capable of carrying nuclear warheads to all corners of India. Is London burning? If you're ready to go into Cold War mode, watch footage of nuclear blasts at the Office of Science and Technical Information. Sing along to "Duck and Cover" and learn how energy is released from "A is for Atoms" at the...
CIA Director George Tenet says that he's privately corrected Dick Cheney on three occasions after the VP misstated intelligence conclusions. I guess if there's one thing you can say about the Bush team, it's that they have such good manners to keep things like reasons for war private. Tenet, who was appointed by Clinton in 1997, has to be thankful that he even still has a job. When asked whether he thinks the administration deliberately skewed the facts in order to go to war in Iraq, Tenet replied "That's a private matter I'll take up at our next picnic of...
Based on Michael Lesy's 1973 book of the same name, James Marsh's Wisconsin Death Trip feeds off of that innate curiosity many of us have with odd facts, people, and crimes. Both book and film are concerned with the town of Black River Falls and the strange events that occurred there in the late 1890s. Lesy collected vintage newspaper clippings and photographs to compose a portait of this turn of the century town. Marsh in turn took select items from the book and recreated them for his film to make, in his words, a visual essay. Opening with beautiful,...
If you're coming to New York for dirty pictures, don't bother going to Ninth Avenue. Right now the lewdest show here is at the Met. "Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740–1840" features small clay sculpture. Among these are neo-classical pieces modeled on Greek and Roman myths, and a common theme was the grappling/embracing of the man-beast Centaur and a fiesty lass. One sculpture features the Centaur spreading the woman's ass while the two struggle, and his fingers going into regions Hugh Hefner would find a tad shocking. Perhaps Camille Paglia's right about the high porn of classical antiquity. If...
So not only is the Bush White House manipulating the Israeli peace process for political gain, now the Republican National Committee is trying to bully the media into submission with legalism. The RNC is telling television stations that they're breaking the law by running Moveon.org's ads criticizing the enormous Bush deficit that will weigh on future generations. Remember when Republicans claimed to be against this kind of legalistic tort bureaucracy?...
Every once and a while, you decide to watch a film you haven't seen in years, one you know is great but has somehow faded in memory. Then, after seeing it again, you wonder why you don't watch it at least once a year. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes was a movie I had seen over ten years ago, had appreciated at the time, yet I now felt ready to see it again with fresh eyes (especially after having recently seen Black Narcissus for the first time). Here is a film that truly represents everything that...
Manhattan User's Guide asked some of their favorite NYC bloggers to describe their ten favorite things about the city. My server's been having problems, so I think my questionnaire got lost somewhere along the way. Without further ado, then, my 10 Favorite Things about NYC. 1. Faces How many faces does the average New Yorker see each day? My non-scientific estimate is about 1,247. In the street, I've seen ruddy CEOs leaving their sleek black cars and blinged-out hip-hoppers smiling through the windows of their stretch Hummers. On the subway, I once saw a sickly strung-out heroin addict's drool falling...
The Nineteenth Century Introvert’s Guide to Friendship
1. Letters. Write them. Receive them. 2. Attend balls with your wildly attractive older sister (and pray you don't get snubbed by a tall, taciturn out-of-towner and his friend’s obnoxious sisters). 3. Learn to pine without seeming melancholy. 4. Taking up a hobby or two (painting, sewing, writing charades, playing the pianoforte) provides plenty of fodder for conversation. 5. Visits. Stay no longer than a fortnight, as extended visits can become tiresome. 6. Ensure that close friends marry tolerable men, so as not to spoil your acquaintance. 7. A turn around the garden affords just enough time to catch up...
The Twenty-First Century Introvert's Guide to Friendship
1. Keep in touch through your web stats! Nothing shows you care like a random link for your friend to find buried in the “Referrers” section. 2. Invite people to movies or shows as often as possible. That way, scary conversation is minimal, and afterward you have a topic! Shows with multiple sets, extra-long movies, or double features are an especially effective way to say “I both enjoy and fear your company!” 3. Blame substances for your awkwardness. Addiction is far more socially acceptable than an embarrassing deficit of social grace. (“Oh, my hands are shaking? Those pesky DTs! Hahahaha....”)...
Film Forum is following the sold-out success of their January run of Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" with a month of stereoscopic mania every Thursday -- beginning tonight with Raoul Walsh's "Gun Fury" (and the Three Stooges' "Pardon My Backfire"). Where Hitchcock's use of 3-D was subtle, unexpected, and domestic, my guess is that "Gun Fury" will leave people needing neckbraces from all the surprise action bursting from the screen. Adventure, violence, and swagger are the order of the night. But Walsh has a soft touch and amazing sensitivity, too. He's been called the only director who could get away...
And away we go. The new DG (or Gusto2 as its friends call it after a long night of whiskey) is born. May its life be as vital and robust as Gusto1 and, if the time ever comes, its death more dignified. And speaking of vital and robust, my former senator John Kerry will be the Democratic nominee to oppose GWB in the fall. Bush is scared. John Kerry on the Issues A list of Kerry-sponsored bills TPM swoons over Kerry's non-Vietnam fighting credentials And, for the doubtful Dems out there, Kaus indulges in doubts not just about Kerry the...
