Feb

26

“Reign of Fire”: Crash and Burn

February 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment

One of the problems with being a bit of an insomniac is that one winds up late at night, watching extraordinary crap like Reign of Fire. TBS, Spike, Encore’s Action channel… they’re great resources for this stuff. The dragons that once wiped out the dinosaurs emerge from underground mines to feed on… whatever’s handy, mostly […]

Feb

25

“American Beauty” tosses off Lovecraft reference: “Reanimator”

February 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Sitting here watching American Beauty on the sometimes underestimated Turner Movie Classics, I’m appalled to think to myself, “I could wind up like this guy if I’m not careful.” Life’s dangerous– we have to remain able to surprise ourselves. (On the other hand, I should comfort myself in that I’ve owned the car I always […]

Feb

17

Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain: A Glimpse of Life in the DDR

February 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment

At a moment when Das Leben der Anderen is generating huge buzz as a portrait of East German life under watchful Stasi eyes, it was odd to stumble across Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, which featured Julie Andrews and Paul Newman as faux defectors trying to slip into and then out of the DDR, with a […]

Feb

16

Anna Nicole Smith’s Mythic Proportions

February 16, 2007 | 2 Comments

The natural impulse, on seeing the whole stir over Anna Nicole Smith’s increasingly bizarre and sad family drama and, now, unexpected and untimely passing, is to think: Fury, signifying nothing. But…
Where we are now is in some kind of afterecho of a tragedy. But which one? Several come to mind:

Oedipus at Colonus (a.k.a., as some would have it, Oedipus […]