Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (Bat Segundo interview with Bissell)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
movie Archive
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Review: Clash of the Titans (2010)
Posted on April 2, 2010 | 3 CommentsEven as a lad, I was not a fan of the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans. A grade school teacher, detecting some faint whiff of precocity, suggested that... -
Review: Cop Out (2010)
Posted on February 25, 2010 | 4 CommentsAs suggested by Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, Steven Soderbergh initiated his “one for us, one for them” plunge into the Hollywood ocean with 1998′s Out of Sight. Richard... -
Review: Happy Tears (2010)
Posted on February 21, 2010 | 3 CommentsIt is difficult to muster much enthusiasm for Mitchell Lichtenstein’s latest film, Happy Tears — in part because Tamara Jenkins gave us the similarly-themed The Savages three years ago, a... -
Review: Youth in Revolt (2009)
Posted on January 8, 2010 | No CommentsMichael Cera, a reedy actor known for grilling his thin mix of thespic tricks into crepe-like pipsqueaks quietly braying the predictable coups de foudre, is not necessarily a man to... -
Review: Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009)
Posted on December 30, 2009 | 1 CommentSometime ago, I attended a screening for Did You Hear About the Morgans? I apologize for the lateness of this review. I have been occupied with more important things, such... -
Review: The Road (2009)
Posted on November 23, 2009 | 2 CommentsIn 2006, an incalculable number of retroussé-nosed snobs — most possessing little understanding or appreciation of speculative fiction — were justly charmed by Cormac McCarthy’s YA novel, The Road. It... -
Review: 2012 (2009)
Posted on November 11, 2009 | 13 CommentsRoland Emmerich’s 2012 is slightly better than Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow — the hack director’s two previous opuses involving mass devastation. But that’s a bit like saying... -
NYFF: The White Ribbon (2009)
Posted on October 7, 2009 | 1 Comment[This is the first in a series of posts relating to the 2009 New York Film Festival.] (This post will be updated. Review of The White Ribbon TK.) On October... -
Review: Capitalism: A Love Story
Posted on September 23, 2009 | 8 CommentsIt seems to me that, if you’re rolling out the howitzers with the intent to destroy an ideology, you should probably blow the shit out of everything. But Michael Moore’s... -
Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Posted on September 15, 2009 | 4 CommentsIt’s safe to say that any imaginative soul will welcome the prospect of tasty food descending from the heavens. It’s a great idea. Not only does this cut down or... -
Review: 9 (2009)
Posted on September 9, 2009 | 7 Comments“We had such potential, such promise,” croaks an apocalyptic voice at the beginning of an apocalyptic movie. That may as well be director Shane Acker and screenwriter Pamela Pettler talking.... -
Review: The September Issue (2009)
Posted on August 28, 2009 | 1 Comment“People are frightened of fashion,” explains the frosty Anna Wintour at the beginning of The September Issue, a documentary concerning itself with the behind-the-scenes assembly of Vogue‘s September 2007 issue.... -
Review: Taking Woodstock (2009)
Posted on August 25, 2009 | 2 CommentsThe realities were already fixed; the illness was understood to be terminal, and the energies of The Movement were long since dissipated by the rush to self-preservation. — Hunter S.... -
Review: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Posted on August 21, 2009 | 13 CommentsThe important thing to understand about Quentin Tarantino is that, as an artist, he has no interest in real life. (Mr. Tarantino’s excellent Crate and Barrel adventure from 2004 does... -
Review: Taxidermia (2006)
Posted on August 12, 2009 | 1 CommentI don’t know if I would go so far as to call György Pálfi our next Fellini (circa late 1960s), our next Pasolini, or even some predictable filmmaker going out... -
Review: Pleasure at Her Majesty’s (1976) and The Secret Policeman’s Ball (1979)
Posted on June 25, 2009 | No CommentsYou know that cultural journalism is in a sorry state when only four people show up for a screening, and not a single dead soul (save for myself, still chortling... -
Review: Dead Snow (2009)
Posted on June 16, 2009 | 3 CommentsEarlier this year, numerous enthusiasts exploded in their pants over a movie that had not yet snagged American distribution. If you were among the throbbing throng to take in the... -
Review: Observe and Report (2009)
Posted on April 10, 2009 | No CommentsObserve and Report‘s most memorable moment involves the appropriately named Randy Gambill’s penis, which flaps in slow motion beneath Gambill’s developing pot belly as Seth Rogen chases him in a... -
New Directors/New Films: Barking Water (2009)
Posted on March 19, 2009 | 1 Comment[This is the first in a series of dispatches relating to the New Directors/New Films series, running between March 25 and April 5 at MOMA and the Film Society of... -
Review: Friday the 13th (2009)
Posted on February 13, 2009 | 20 CommentsWhy in the hell would anyone want to see a reboot of Friday the 13th? Well, the killings, of course. Jason has such a physics-defying command of the machete that... -
Review: Fanboys (2009)
Posted on February 3, 2009 | 2 CommentsThere have been nearly eighteen months of production problems for Fanboys, the comedy film made by geeks for geeks involving a 1998 pilgrimage to Skywalker Ranch to steal a rough... -
Review: New in Town (2009)
Posted on January 28, 2009 | 6 CommentsI am not necessarily opposed to romantic comedies. In fact, I even confessed to my moviegoing companion on the subway ride back that I enjoyed Notting Hill. I’m pretty certain... -
The Bat Segundo Show: Chazz Palminteri & Robert Celestino
Posted on January 9, 2009 | No CommentsChazz Palminteri and Robert Celestino both appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #259. Chazz Palminteri is the star of Yonkers Joe. Robert Celestino is the writer and director of Yonkers... -
Review: The Spirit
Posted on December 25, 2008 | 3 CommentsThe critics were not happy during the screening. The critic to my left fell asleep in his chair for an hour. The critic to my right — a jovial man... -
Review: Revolutionary Road
Posted on December 25, 2008 | 1 CommentIn Blake Bailey’s A Tragic Honesty, an excellent Richard Yates biography, Bailey depicts Yates’s efforts to adapt William Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness for director John Frankenheimer. The film, as... -
Review: Special (2006)
Posted on November 14, 2008 | 2 CommentsThere are severe problems with Hal Haberman & Jeremy Passmore’s Special — scheduled to play on November 21st in Los Angeles and New York as the second film in Magnet... -
Review: Choke (2008)
Posted on September 10, 2008 | No CommentsWriter-director Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 2001 novel has a number of things going for it. It has, first and foremost, the intriguing choice of Sam Rockwell cast as...