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Month: November 2004
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Mike Nichols: Look Homeward, Auteur
Culture critics across the spectrum agree: Mike Nichols returns to his roots with his latest film, Closer.
But which roots? No one seems closer to agreement:
Mike Nichol’s latest movie, ‘Closer,’ adapted from a play by the British dramatist Patrick Marber, is about four people, arranged in crisscrossing couples, who spend most of two hours slicing one another to bits with witty and vengeful repartee. In this respect it is a lot like his first movie, ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,’ which in 1966 was adapted from Edward Albee’s celebrated play, which to this day remains unequalled in its portrayal of heterosexuality as a form of ritualized verbal blood sport.
(Who’s Returning to Virginia Woolf?, by A.O. Scott, The New York Times, Nov. 28, 2004.)
Or:
Thirty-three years ago, director Mike Nichols tackled love, sex, betrayal and relationships in a frank and unflinching fashion with ‘Carnal Knowledge.’ That film, which starred Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret, became a classic for its refusal to sugar-coat emotional tangles and for its utter lack of a sun-drenched, music-swelling happy ending.
With ‘Closer,’ he returns to this familiar battlefield and finds, well, things haven’t gotten rosier over the years.
(‘Closer’ to the Truth, by Andy Cocker, The New York Post, Nov. 28, 2004.)
Personally, I thought it was a return to The Day of the Dolphin.
As anyone who’s been disowned by his family and rejected by even his mail-order bride knows, the only thing to do on Thanksgiving when you’re painfully alone is to see a lot of movies. It’s so much easier to cry in a dark movie theater, but it’s even better to laugh!
Here are my blurbs for this holiday weekend’s releases. Messrs. Ebert and Roeper, eat your hearts out:
National Treasure: A national disaster!
Kinsey: Hideous Kinsey!
The Incredibles: Incredibly bad!
Bad Education: You said it, not me!
Alexander: Alexander the So-So!
Finding Neverland: Lose it!
Ray: Gay!
After the Sunset: Ratner scores again! A roller-coaster ride of thrills and laughs: a witty tropical romp that’s as cool as a Daiquiri and twice as intoxicating!
U.S. Army 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry soldiers relax near a space heater after a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and ham was delivered to their outpost in Mosul, Iraq Thursday, Nov. 25, 2004. Insurgents rose up this month in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, during an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi forces in Fallujah. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)
Related: Somebody Tell Lt. Brandon Turner That He’s Insane [Under The Same Sun]
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Yellow Alert… Orange Alert… Red Alert
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, co-sponsored by The Department of Homeland Security
Can’t make this up: Go here to learn about the DHS’s real parade on November 26.
God, it’s so weird being home for Thanksgiving: sleeping in that narrow little bed, feeling like you have to ask permission to go for a drive like you’re a teenager even though you’re twenty-nine.
It’s even weirder now that you’re divorced. Everyone’s being all cool and polite about it, which makes it a little easier to be here alone for the first time since high school. Your “funny” uncle hasn’t made a single joke about wanting the money for that fondue set he got you and your ex from Crate & Barrel, and even your usually snide little sister hugged you a little longer and asked, “How are you, sis?”
Sure, your mom cut out an article from The Times ‘Style’ section on “starter marriages” (never mind that the article was printed before your wedding hit the skids last winter in Aspen—has mom been saving it all this time?), and she keeps offering you herbal tea and wanting to talk. You can tolerate it, especially since she paid for your ticket home.
But there’s one hour Thursday night when they all better steer clear of you: 8 PM EST, when The O.C. airs.
If any of those fuckers even tries to talk to you during The O.C., you’re going to explode in a screaming fit, thrashing about and destroying your father’s fancy new stereo and reducing your mother’s precious Hummels to dust. For real: no jury in the land would convict a 29 year-old divorcée for killing her entire family on Thanksgiving night if they knew that all she wanted to do was watch The O.C.
Shit. Now you’ll need a good lawyer. Not one of those awful public defenders with dandruff and a baggy, hand-me-down Brooks Brothers suit. (Can’t you get it tailored—it only costs like forty bucks?) You’ll need one of those slick ones who do pro bono work, especially for still pretty women accused of crimes of passion. Maybe he’ll even be sexy like Peter Gallagher on The O.C.
After a long, public trial, dutifully covered in People and on CNN (“Whoa, is that Dominick Dunne in the audience of my murder trial?”), you’d be acquitted when your motive is fully explained: Not guilty by reason of O.C.
It’ll be hard to put the trial behind you (and, you know, the death of your whole family, including your “funny” uncle), but you’ve always been remarkably strong. You pride yourself on having only cried at work once—that goddamn toner got all over your skirt, it wasn’t your fault—and even when your ex was playing all those sadistic mind games, you never once threw it in his face that you knew it would be a bad idea to marry a Jew. (Situational anti-Semitism: so weak.)
Yes, you are a strong, independent woman, and now that your murder trial is behind you, you will fulfill your destiny by finding a nice man and bearing his children. But there’s something you need to do first: you need to go to the video store and buy the DVDs of the last two seasons of The O.C., since you sort of lost track of the show while you were in jail. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and The O.C. is there for you, unlike those dead jerks in your family. Now, who does a woman have to kill around here to get some service at this fucking Blockbuster?
Actually, I’ve never seen The O.C.: I’m sure it’s pretty good.
The O.C. airs at 8PM EST on FOX
Earlier: Obligatory Pop Culture Entry to Prove We Haven’t Become Humorless Prigs; O.C.D.; The O.C.: Your One and Only Friend.
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Wow, What an Amazing Coincidence!
This press release article alerted us to an insultingly cynical incredible, fortuitous confluence of cross-promotional marketing events:
Donald Trump’s fiancee, Melania Knauss, says her appearance on last week’s episode of “The Apprentice” has landed her a job modeling Levi’s jeans.
“I was on ‘The Apprentice’ and they saw me and they asked me if I would do the advertising for them and I said, of course,” Knauss said on yesterday’s episode of “The View.”
During last week’s “Apprentice,” the teams were instructed to create a Levi’s catalogue.
–DREAM OF JEANIE, by Michael Starr, The New York Post, Nov. 24, 2004.
So, all it took was a product placement segment on a top-rated show hosted by her “billionaire” fiancé to get the gig? This overnight success story is sure to go down in legend like Lana Turner getting discovered at the Schwab’s Soda Counter. It makes us all sick proud.
Related: Post “copy” “editors”: It’s You’ve Got Mail, not You Have…
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Mommy’s Little Zealot
Michelle “Three Cheers for Internment” Malkin, who never fails to make me smile (mostly at the thought that I too can have a syndicated column if I work hard enough at being bigoted and mediocre), has a sweet little Thanksgiving-themed column today called Grace, gratitude and God. (It’s my sincere hope that this becomes a perennial holiday column, something along the lines of “Yes, Virginia, there was an Iraq-al Qaida link.”)
After an endearing little homily about her four year-old daughter learning to say “grace” before meals, she tells us:
In typical toddler fashion, my daughter is now absolutely fanatical about her new routine. Not only must we say grace before every meal, but also before each snack. And anytime we have a drink. And anytime her baby brother gobbles Cheerios in his car seat. Failure to give thanks to God is met with swift retribution. Our daughter has no qualms about chastising us in public—at restaurants, airports or Starbucks:
“Hey, stop eating! You forgot to say grace!”
Despite the embarrassment it sometimes causes, I love her unrepentant zeal. It reminds us not to take for granted our too-infrequent gestures of daily thanksgiving. It reminds us to be humble. Following her lead, we must all bow our heads and fold our hands and shut our eyes and shout a full-throated “Amen!”
Absolutely adorable! (And, Hmmmm… for some reason I’m craving Starbucks.)
I won’t make fun of Malkin’s red state, red meat, red-baitin’ (red shirt wearin’) religion, since the rest of the column is all about the evils of Bible-bashing (“[S]nobs of secularism will no doubt disparage such simple-minded expressions of piety…”), but I would like to point out that Malkin is seriously remiss in the way she’s raising her child. In fact, she’s putting her precious life at risk every single day.
Not once—once!—does Malkin mention teaching her god-thanking offspring to wash her hands before eating. Talk about a breakdown of traditional values: This is tantamount to child abuse!
How can we expect to raise the next generation of good little Christian soldiers if they’re brought low by bacterial infections? How can America remain the most powerful, compassionate, and ass-kickingly awesome country in the world if we don’t teach the wee little ones to wash their hands before eating? (I happen to know for a fact that in the employee washrooms of sweatshops all over Asia and Guatemala there are “Employees Must Wash Hands” signs: Those are well-trained four year-olds.)
So, Michelle, please tell the little one to lather up those hands before clasping them together in prayer. And don’t forget to remind her that immigrants are especially dirty, and that even god cannot protect her if she should accidentally brush against one of those beasts.
Amen
Earlier Mal-Content: Why… Is Michelle Malkin the New Jadakiss?
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The Haunting of the President, 2004
The Spirit: “Why won’t this damn ghost stop followin’ me around?”
One of 1,229.
Earlier: Thanksgiving 2003: The Mourn of Plenty
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Como se wha?: Well, a few anyway.
Hi, loyal readers who couldn’t get the full week off for Thanksgiving. (Or “Thanks-taking,” as my friend Sam likes to call it.) We apologize to the three of you who emailed us to say you can’t post comments, and the other three of you who noticed, but couldn’t be bothered to send us a complaint. (Thanks for that, actually.) Once again, it’s something beyond our control, and we’re looking into the issue right now. We’d invite you to use our comments area to offer your suggestions, but (ha!) comments don’t work.
So, this Thanks-taking, when you sit down to enjoy the cascading bounty of the American horn-of-plenty, say an extra little thanks for all the terrible, hackneyed, totally worthless blogs that never seem to crash or have software problems. God bless them, for we know not why their sites function so well.
Now, excuse us while we throw another small pox blanket over our server.