YAY!

watching "raiders of the lost ark" as we speak. but somehow, i don't think my lust for shia will make me pay money to see this. i'll wait until it's online a week later.

thanks ian!

Indiana Jones. I knew some day you'd come walking back through my door.

Damn!

Mmm nothing beats leathery old man skin.

Two problems here:

1. Always beware of posts with a few comments.

2. Time magazine?

@Sailor: The sun has only just gone over the yardarm, sailor! Give the gin a while to soak in.

You're probably right. Waiting for something else to cut in as we speak, given the day I'm having.

The Hollywood Reporter also has reviewed this afternoon and gave it a negative-to-lukewarm review. Eh.

I'll keep watching the marthon of the first three on Sci Fi (seriously, first time watching that channel).

@Sailor: Why do you taunt me?

@Sailor: If a post has few comments it's only because someone has yet to say something about communism or hipsters (which are actually the same thing).

As for Time being the source, I was skeptical as well. I had heard that the latest James Frey book I haven't read got a good review out of them, but then I actually read the review and it was more of a "not as bad as you'd think" review, and said something about the worst parts being the worst thing you'll read all year . . . now not that this was the same critic, so comparing it is totally invalid (isn't it) but since I can't decide whether we are supposed to hate on Frey forever and ever amen for breaking the suspension of not-disbelief or whether we are supposed to give this book a chance, I have no sense of whether I ought to call bullshit on that review and the ship whose colors it flies. And that makes me very unsure of how much I can trust that they won't try to snow me regarding a movie that I really want to be good but am afraid will not be good. What is their agenda? How could they possibly not have one?

@Zorica: What is this thing about Time? Whenever I post an item from there someone makes a mysterious comment like "Time magazine?" What am I not getting?

@ian spiegelman:

Easy, Ian. Not taunting you at all. Instead I comment mostly on the weekends because of you. I simply questioned Time as an authority on films.

Peace, my brother.

@Sailor: I was just goofing. But I've had trouble with Time stories before. I never realized there was a stigma about the site. And, anyhow, I'll take any excuse to post of photo of Marion in the white dress.

@Zorica: Re: Frey -- From what I've read of it and about it, it seems easy enough to figure out that his new book is a horrorshow of nonsensical Palahniuk-aping prose mixed with half-baked attempts at a Michener-by-way-of-Wikipedia history of Los Angeles without having to resort to invoking the scandale of A Million Little Sentence Fragments. Too bad reviews of the book seem to using it as an opportunity to render final verdict of his "redeemability," which distracts from the fact that his new book is an ethically impeccable load of garbage.

Uhh, that was pretty vitriolic. Know that none of it was directed at you, my beautiful, newly befooted Zorica! I just hate that Frey has successfully parlayed his notoriety into some kind of "literary outlaw" status that has blinded many to the fact that he's just a terrible writer, both as a memoirist and novelist.

@ian spiegelman: I can't speak for everyone, but personally I have this impression that Time is People dressed up to look like Important Stuff. Our family subscribed to it all my life and when I was a kid I thought all of those little graphs and things were full of Dreadfully Serious Stuff that as an adult would make me full of Knowledge. Now, watching how my mother consumes the entire magazine over a slice of quiche, it seems like the literate equivalent of popcorn. Not as nutritionally-challenged as french fries, but meant for small, snacky bites and easy digestion. Not a meal.

When I consider it rationally, there's lots of Real Journalism going on there that you don't get in People. But more and more (is this me maturing or the magazine changing? I hesitate to say) I see pieces that are more charts than words, and on topics that seem ever more novel and ever less likely to make me not just think, but really question something.

I suppose Time has a reputation for taking itself seriously, and that's a dangerous thing to do in the current climate. Exhibit A: the flowering of Gawker.

As much as I love the snark, I wouldn't be sad for something else to eventually supersede it. Lately I've been drifting away from the Oscar Wilde and towards the Emily Dickinson. Yearning for sincerity? Just a bit.

@Zorica: Oh okay... I honestly never realized people thought about this stuff that much. I mean, I've always thought of Time as just this totally neutral thing that was boring. I didn't grow up reading anything but MAD, of course. But I do get you, re Wilde V. Dickinson. I wrote my college senior thesis on her. Can you believe it?!

@BeRightBack: Ha! Yes, it is quite the avatar!

I wouldn't go so far as comparing Time with People, certainly in terms of news reporting, but this feels like a PR stroke, and I don't much trust most mainstream movie critics anyway.

@BeRightBack: It wasn't that vitriolic. You did say it was ethically impeccable.

The word "schadenfreude" has been popping up this weekend, and I suppose I experience just a bit of that on the professional level, knowing that this kind of thing goes on in the esteemed and lofty field of letters same as it does in more "superficial" places, including the ones where I work. It's almost some kind of comfort. Every field has its showmen, running their three ring circuses, singing "Razzle Dazzle" from Chicago, bribing the judge and distracting the jury from the evidence. Getting lost in their wake stings a little less knowing that it's not only my own game that's fucked up.

As my old battle-ax of a coach would say, "Bullshit artists are everywhere. They're grabby and they win regularly. Get over it."

As for my leggacies, *blush* you noticed! I'm kind of surprised you can even tell what they are, they get so small in avatar form.

@Sailor: Exactly. Though it's worse with previews; actual reviews are a little more trustworthy, but not if they're blown up into features or celebrity pieces. Newsweek is the same way (remember their retrospectively embarrassing cover for the Da Vinci Code movie?). For some reason, the tipping point for me with Newsweek was a piece on Nicole Kidman starring in David Hare's The Blue Room that went on for paragraphs about her "incandescence." I was just worldly enough to follow up my initial "Where the fuck is this coming from?" with "Oh right. Her publicist."

If it means anything to anyone (it does to me), Roger Ebert gave it a pretty glowing review
. Three and a half stars.

@Midwesterner in NYC: I love Ebert.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Say it aloud. The very title causes the pulse to quicken, if you, like me, are a lover of pulp fiction. What I want is goofy action--lots of it. I want man-eating ants, swordfights between two people balanced on the backs of speeding jeeps, subterranean caverns of gold, vicious femme fatales, plunges down three waterfalls in a row, and the explanation for flying saucers. And throw in lots of monkeys."

@Midwesterner in NYC: @ian spiegelman: I like him too, even when I don't agree with him (see: his overestimation of Crash). I always know where he's coming from, and he's seen a billion movies and draws on that knowledge well to inform his reviews of new stuff, as well as to address changes in his opinions, like his conversion from hating David Lynch to appreciating him.

@ian spiegelman: I know, I almost started jumping for joy after reading that paragraph. I can not wait for Thursday morning at 12:00 AM!!!

@ian spiegelman: Actually I can believe that. She's such an easy weakness. Also, target. I took a group of high school girls to visit her house once. Because I could not stop to give them death they kindly would not stop butchering her poetry with nonsensical insertions of weak sexual puns. She is fertile ground for a good mind.

I wrote my senior thesis on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Kind of like preparing for a career as a clown by running a marathon. Ah, my salad days!

@Zorica: Well, it seemed unlikely that they were be-slippered chopsticks, so I took an educated guess [smiley emoticon].

@ian spiegelman: It's partly the result of peer pressure and partly the result of wanting to put my best foot forward har har *cough* *hairball*.

@Sailor: Jon Stewart referred to Time as (paraphrasing) the magazine for people who like USA Today but wish it were shinier.

@BeRightBack: Holy shit, a worthy shot of be-slippered chopsticks just became the next project/obsession for me and my nefarious accomplices. People might even think there's some kind of political statement (and there is! there is!) but mostly I just love putting pointe shoes on things.

@BeRightBack: I agree. After thinking about what you wrote (Ebert's review of Crash) I think I am going to try and control my excitement a bit. I do believe Ebert gave The Phantom Menace three and a half stars too, but I think he gets many more right then wrong.

@Zorica:
And that's how Vreme got its name as well as its ethos.

@BeRightBack: I like people who can change their opinions, and even better if they can figure out why. His review has me near peeing in my pants.

@Zorica: I'll keep you far away from my pets then.

@Zorica: Today's peer pressure is tomorrow's cyberbullying...

@rosaluxembourgeoise: I hate to say it, but I only ever put hands on one issue of Vreme. Much more often? Direkt or 24 sata. For shame. Zal mi je.

@Zorica: Peer pressure is how ended up with an avatar too. But mine shows up bigger when you go to my profile and yours doesn't. But it should.

Sir Gawain is such a great, dirty story.

@BeRightBack: If I had had to review Episode I within two weeks of seeing, I would have given it four stars. I was an intern at New York mag when it came out and the exec ed gave me his pass to the week-early premiere screening. I was so psyched I couldn't really allow myself to believe that it was sucking. On the subway ride home, my brain tried to force me to acknowledge that it sucked, and I gave it such a beating that it shut the ef up and I told all my friends it was awesome and organized a trip for like 15 of us to see it at Midnight opening day.

@BeRightBack: I'm over trying to put pointe shoes on cats and I have the scars to prove it. Pointe shoes on dogs is too easy. Pointe shoes on a fish would be amazing but we only have one fish, a beta who has somehow lived to be three years old, and I cannot stomach the the trying because he could croak at any second and we're basically playing "not it" with who is going to be responsible for his inevitable demise (and you know someone is going to be responsible, no matter how he goes, because a beta that lives for three years has proven his immortality and it is up to the humans to destroy him at will). Pointe shoes on lizards would be hot. Fathers, lock up your lizards.

@jackvinyl: I discovered some of my favorite things via peer pressure. As for bullying, I'm reading The Power of One right now and would welcome the chance to use the things I have learned.

Thanks for the push, action was overdue.

@ian spiegelman: I was kind of wondering why that wasn't happening. And also why I can't update any of my info. But I have much bigger things to worry about, like not spelling "commitment" with two ts anymore, ever.

Re: your reaction to Episode I, I am starting to worry that I might have done that, just a little bit, for Iron Man. Only time will tell. I definitely did that for Pirates III and have since been greatly saddened by the memory.

Oh, adrenaline! That's actually a good segue into chatter about Gawain. The bedroom parts are totally rad. And this is idiotic but I really, really love the color green, and you can feel that color so strongly in the final scene.

@Zorica: It's probably just a bug that will work itself out soon... We have lots of wiggy stuff that creeps up now and then... And, wow, this is becoming a fetishy thread! Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I can't pretend to remember the last scene as much as the rest... I know he doesn't get his head cut off... But mostly I remember all the naughty garter bits.

Yeesh, this thread is like being in quicksand.

Never defended Time, only as a direct comparison with People.

And Ebert's a nice man, but I wouldn't put my last dollar on his review.

@Zorica: It takes a bit for things to work their way through the system, like messages in Shakespearean plays.

But wait....isn't that star I see new? Or am I just inobservant? Anyway, love the new look!

And don't take this the wrong way, but your pointe-shoes-on-everything mania reminded me of one of my favourite "Jean Teasdale" columns from The Onion, when she dressed up the neighbor's baby as a clown: [www.theonion.com]

Time Magazine?
People Magazine?
INDIANA FUCKING JONES, PEOPLE!!!!!!!

See you at the theater.

@In Other News...: Well said.

if you think about it, most of the originals of great franchises would get shit reviews today. so i don't give much weight to the negative reviews.

@In Other News...:

SO FUCKING WHAT!

@Mike_Jahn: We- ah ah- we are not thirsty.

Marion: Waddaya want?

Nazi: The same thing Herr Doktor Jones wanted. Surely he told you there would be other interested parties?

Marion: {lighting a cigarette} Musta slipped his mind.

Nazi: The man is - NEFARIOUS.

Some of the best damned script wirting of the late 20th century, right there.

@ian spiegelman:

--it looks a wild place:
no sign of a settlement anywhere to be seen
but heady heights to both halves of the valley
and set with saber-toothed stones of such sharpness
no cloud in the sky could escape unscratched.
He stalls and halts, holds the horse still,
glances side to side to glimpse the green chapel
but sees no such thing, which he thinks is strange,
except at mid-distance what might be a mound,
a sort of bald knoll on the bank of a brook
where fell water surged with frenzied force,
bursting with bubbles as if it had boiled.
He heels the horse, heads for that mound,
grounds himself gracefully and tethers Gringolet,
looping the reins to the limb of a lime.
Then he strides forwards and circles the feature,
baffled as to what that bizarre hill could be:
it had a hole at one end and at either side,
and its wall, matted with weeds and moss,
enclosed a cavity, like a kind of old cave
or crevice in the crag--it was all too unclear to
declare.
"Green Church?" chunters the knight.
"More like the devil's lair
where, at the nub of night,
he makes his morning prayer."

"For certain," he says, "this is a soulless spot,
a ghostly cathedral overgrown with grass,
the kind of kirk where that camouflaged man
might deal in devilment and all things dark.
My five senses inform me that Satan himself
has tricked me in this tryst, intending to destroy me.
This is a haunted house--may it go to hell.
I never came across a church so cursed."