Whip It: Girls Need to See This Movie

Someone once said they would go out tonight but they haven’t got a stitch to wear, and I’m feeling that way after watching Whip It: in need of clothes and a destination.
Having seen it, I’m predictably fascinated by roller derby, awed by Juliette Lewis, and delighted with Drew Barrymore and Kristin Wiig. I’m all-around pretty [...]

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The Last Act

The only thing I know about this movie is the billboards, which look just like the above.  They are all over town, and every time I see one I think that the traditional romantic comedy industry is so burnt and anemic from trying to combat the new era of love in hoodies (key symptoms include [...]

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Inglourious Basterds: Comic Book or Graphic Novel?

Darling CF,
Recalling the days we spent aswelter amid our video-game art and chandeliers, all I can summon up to say on this sunny September morning, when so much of your city is burning and you are in a housedress, is: You! Makeup!!! And have you seen Inglourious Basterds? Because it is a riproaring superfun marriage [...]

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Funny People: In Which Sandler and Apatow Don’t Make It to the Altar and No One Laughs or Cries. Part I.

Dear CF,
Your reaction to the Funny People movie poster was eerily prescient. You have powers. Be my psychic? Also, I’d like to point out that James Thurber wrote his autobiography, “My Life and Hard Times,” at 40. As a joke. Would that Apatow’s self-awareness ran so deep when he decided to mount a Career Retrospective [...]

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My So-Called Freak: Angela Chase, Lindsay Weir, Voiceover and Voiceunder

Hullo darlin’,
Were the Funny People poster-people fabrics, Leslie Mann would be cotton, Sandler pleats and Rogen polyester: shiny and smooth even where we want and expect wrinkles. (That shot of him is a bit cetaceous, no? Like he’s looking forward to spinning a multi-colored ball on the tip of his nose to make it all [...]

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How to Talk About Bruno Without Using the Verb Sashay

Dear Millicent,
The summer movie gorging continues.  Yesterday, I saw Bruno.  I saw so much of Bruno that his urethral opening talked to me and said his name.  Yes, I have seen Bruno.  Quick list of reactions below:

The first five minutes, especially when the title music started playing, were enchanting.  I settled in for some fizzy [...]

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Away We Go But We’re Still Here

Dear CF,
I’m choked up with thoughts. I’ve started five letters to you and finished none of them. This I want to fix. So much to talk about: let’s start with Away We Go, which I finally watched.
I’d forgotten that Eggers and wife wrote the script. The moment those credits flashed on the screen I understood [...]

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Fables and Nests

Dear M.,
Your thoughts about names and the responsibility of labeling things correctly were quite lovely.  I wonder if pen names can be considered honest at all, when they offer such a supreme cloak of distance.  Somebody said, but I didn’t say.  I could have said, but instead, Somebody said.  And yet, anonymity also allows for [...]

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If There’s a Tiger…I Give

Dear Millicent,
Kudos on your garbage! Yellow gingham and wicker: so cheery, so kempt! Also, THANK YOU for the spectacle of costuming featured below.  That green boob flash is one of those moments when I realize that, like storytelling, there maybe a finite number of ways to cut a cloth, but also an infinite chance of [...]

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Riding in Airplanes #2: On With the Story (And Full of Hot Air)

Dear CF,
I had intended to do at least two Riding in Airplanes posts in this little series. The second installment was going to be about the intimate conversations we have on planes with total strangers. Some coincidences have, well, incided that plan. So I’ve lazily decided to organize this post according to coincidence, which the [...]

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