Tag: hollywood

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Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam @ Joe Bob Briggs

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The United States has a lot of problems. On occasion, someone might have a bright idea on how to solve those problems. The book asserting it can fix all America’s problems is Grand New Party: How Republicans can win the working class and save the American Dream by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. The main idea of Grand New Party is for the GOP to offer an agenda that would help a pan-ethnic working class. Unfortunately, it seems that the people most in need of reading this book have not done so. Arizona attempted to solve its immigration problem in … Continue reading Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam @ Joe Bob Briggs

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part V

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Two Personal Favorites: Spook Country (2007) and Domino (2005) Spook Country The toughest challenge for any author is to follow up a big hit with an equally big hit.  Following the epic genius of Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon released the misunderstood novel Vineland.  In the case of William Gibson, he experienced career resurgence with the release of Pattern Recognition, an “empathetic thriller” about advertising, intelligence, and an elusive video.  Gibson set the novel in the present and it reads like a strange relic, an artifact set in a world after 9/11 but before YouTube. Spook Country follows the same general … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part V

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part III

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Reappropriation: Camp, Kitsch, and Sincerity “When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition.  The artist hasn’t attempted to do anything outlandish.” – “Notes on Camp” [1965], Susan Sontag “Need more clarification? To his fans Liberace was the epitome of cultured taste, but of course we know he was kitsch. However, unlike the not-quite-weird-enough musical stylings of ABBA, say, or the Village People, Liberace-style kitsch is so weird, so outré, that hipsters find it impossible to appropriate as cheese. Liberace didn’t make his work inappropriable on purpose; others, however, have. The … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part III

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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“In place of a hermeneutrics we need an erotics of art.” – “Against Interpretation” [1964], Susan Sontag Challenges and Non-Responses The job of the critic is, by turns, tastemaker, evangelist, and champion.  The best critics harness the powers of intellection and enthusiasm to inform his or her readership on a work’s merits.  If a work receives more merits than demerits, than, in a roughly mathematical fashion, the creator obtains a “good review.”  This reviewer finds works with “mixed reviews” or polarizing reactions (see Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones) most attractive, since “mixed reviews” are not sure things.  A tiny element … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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Critical Appraisals, Dollhouse Riffs, TV1 Comment

Dollhouse Riffs: Special Edition: Victor’s Chin and Sierra’s Cheekbones: Dollhouse and the Reinvention of Beauty on TV

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Author’s Note: I wrote this for the Smart Pop Books essay contest featuring Joss Whedon’s beloved-but-canceled TV series Dollhouse.  Since they did not choose my essay, I am posting it here on my blog. Introduction “A mask is but a sum of lines; a face, on the contrary, is above all their thematic harmony.” – “Garbo’s Face,” Mythologies by Roland Barthes Dollhouse is revolutionary television in its depiction of beauty.  The beauty presented on the program encompasses the social, economic, and visual.  We get the exotic beauty of Sierra and Victor, Bennett Halverson’s nerdy beauty, the damaged Dr. Saunders, Alpha’s … Continue reading Dollhouse Riffs: Special Edition: Victor’s Chin and Sierra’s Cheekbones: Dollhouse and the Reinvention of Beauty on TV

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Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West

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The short tragic life of Nathanael West produced four novels.  Dying penniless and alone, West bequeathed a literary legacy that has reverberated in the works of Alexander Theroux and Thomas Pynchon.  The two works collected here, “Miss Lonelyhearts,” a long short story, and The Day of the Locust, a novella; offer the reader a sampling of West’s scathing apocalyptic satire.  In little over 180 pages, the reader encounters ferocious black humor, hard-boiled surrealism, and apocalyptic visions.  Nathanael West belongs to the family of innovative literary Modernists like T.S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, and William Faulkner. “Miss Lonelyhearts” is a story about … Continue reading Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West

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Jesus of Nazareth by Paul Verhoeven

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At first glance, the idea that Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct, Robocop, and Starship Troopers, wrote a book on Jesus strikes one as the set-up to a particularly tasteless joke.  Fortunately, Verhoeven offers the reader his perspective on the Historical Jesus in his book, Jesus of Nazareth. Trained in mathematics and a prolific filmmaker, Verhoeven has been a member of the Jesus Seminar since he moved to Los Angeles in 1985.  He occupies a unique intellectual position within the Jesus Seminar due to his status as non-academic, non-theologian, and non-believer.  (But belief is not a prerequisite to historical investigation … Continue reading Jesus of Nazareth by Paul Verhoeven

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books, The Art of Reviewing3 Comments

The Art of Reviewing: Cintra Wilson (Part One)

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Every blog needs a large-scale project. The Art of Reviewing will explore reviewing as an art form and as a valuable element to understanding society.  During this project, I will profile specific reviewers of merit.  Several specific cases also explore other facets of reviewing. Cintra Wilson Cintra Wilson was a columnist at Salon, retail reviewer in the New York Times Fashion & Style section (Critical Shopper), and lately political columnist (the C-Word), appearing in the New Haven Advocate, the Hartford Courant, and the Fairfield Weekly.  Wilson also authored the ferocious cultural commentary entitled A Massive Swelling: celebrity re-examined as a … Continue reading The Art of Reviewing: Cintra Wilson (Part One)

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Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming, by David Rosen

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“Americans love sex scandals, and nothing better tells the story of American than sex scandals.”  So begins David Rosen’s Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming.  Sensational title aside, Rosen charts the hidden history of America from the erotic shenanigans of the Puritans to the erotic shenanigans of Eliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, and Ted Haggard.  Rosen does a magnificent job of placing sex scandals into a historical context.  Each era derived specific things from the sex scandals.  These sex scandals found use as either cautionary tales or political fodder or entertainment. Rosen remains even-handed on a topic … Continue reading Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming, by David Rosen

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The Art of Reviewing: Special Case File #1: The movie “300”

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Every blog needs a large-scale project. The Art of Reviewing will explore reviewing as an art form and as a valuable element to understanding society.  During this project, I will profile specific reviewers of merit.  Several specific cases also explore other facets of reviewing. Special Case File #1: The movie 300 In this installation of the Art of Reviewing, the focus will be on a single cultural product.  The movie is 300 (Zak Snyder, 2006).  In the halcyon days of Dubya’s second term, the film adapted a comic book written by Frank Miller.  In the process creating a sensational CGI … Continue reading The Art of Reviewing: Special Case File #1: The movie “300”

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