http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Sun, 4 Jul 2004 18:45:38 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/04/184538.php Doug ValentaRight now, I personally am no where near divorce. I'm not even married (until my best friend starts begging me for a green card), but, as a member of the Children of Divorce generation — and one of the few with parents still married . . . to each other — I have an interesting perspective on this topic. Two of my uncles have ended long marriages involving children (as well as basically all of my friends' fathers), making them the target market for A Man's Guide by Sam Margulies, Ph.D., J.D., so I've seen the effects of divorce on families and children from as close up as possible without becoming permanently scarred.As much as I'm inclined to distrust a self-help book by an author with commas after his name, Margulies has created a smart, funny, socially conscious guide to making it through one of the most difficult experiences in life. Socially conscious? As Margulies puts it in his introduction:"Men often lack a model for getting divorced without a useless war. Most divorce books for men are written by divorce lawyers and contain advice on 'how to screw your wife one last time.' they feed the worst impulses of divorcing men and help turn the divorce into a battle."Margulies's healthy (not self-hating nor vengeful) outlook carries through the book, promoting a sadly rare image of divorce as a potentially win-win situation. His book is one I wish more men (and even women) I know would have read, and one I suggest to any man with children who may be considering divorce. Makes a great wedding gift. Books17108@blogcritics.org Sun, 4 Jul 2004 18:45:38 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/15/201514.php Doug ValentaAlso at verveslag.I was lucky enough to catch a sneak preview of Saved! (also here) this week, and I liked it. I'll admit it — it's a one-joke movie, but it's a damn good joke. It may be unbelievable that something with popstar Mandy Moore and that girl Susan Sarandon begat could be as enjoyable as this, but suspend it.Saved! follows the senior year of high school for Mary (Jena Malone), a born again Christian, and her dogooder friends. But when Mary's boyfriend (Chad Faust) goes gay, and Mary gets pregnant in a desperate attempt to turn him back, she begins to question everything she grew up believing about God, Jesus, and cigarettes. Outcast by the school's piety queen, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), she begins running with the wrong crowd of two — Hilary Faye's crippled brother (Macaulay Culkin) and the high school's token Jew (Eva Amurri) — and learns what Jesus would really do . . . crash the prom on His due date, ex-boyfriend and his boyfriend in tow. Saved! also stars Patrick Fugit and Heather Matarazzo.I was particularly impressed by this movie's handling of the touchy issues about which it dances. People who actually are like the Jesus freak characters in this movie (a friend raised in rural Arkansas assures me "there actually are people like that") will still be offended/confused, but normal, healthy, people who happen to have a religion will find it perfectly safe . . . the movie doesn't condemn religion flat out, only the fundamentalist varieties, which is good news to everyone outside the Bible Belt -- Saved! won't alienate Aunt Marge . . . too much.Sure, some of the people I saw this with thought it was a little lame, and it was — a little. But it's the kind of movie you have to see and like on principle. Or vice versa. Video15704@blogcritics.org Sat, 15 May 2004 20:15:14 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/08/004942.php Doug ValentaAlso at verveslag.Young Adam follows Joe (Ewan McGregor) a young barge worker whose haunting dark secret (Emily Mortimer) pushes him toward adultery with his employer's wife, Ella (Tilda Swinton). This latest effort from David Mackenzie amounts to a stunningly shot, beautifully acted, lushly scored, and adeptly designed exercise in apathy . . . ours.My biggest gripe with this film (beyond its unsavory main character and sex scenes that dangle dangerously between hot and rape to no clear artistic or practical end) is the fact the Joe, whose every minor fling with various not-quite-pretty married women and deep and meaningful looking cigarette break is exquisitely chronicled, doesn't do anything. The diegetic world is no different (in even a petty way) as the credits roll from the way it is when the blue Sony Pictures Classics header flashes -- at least not by his hand. But maybe that's the point. After all, as far as I can tell, the real main character here is the human race. (Don't let the trailer fool you -- this is not a suspense film.) Hence, Young Adam is largely a dark, small, quiet romp in human temptation -- in pain and strife without purpose; in the meaninglessness of everything. Which is why, at first, the film feels so unnatural; so, despite our strongest desires for it to be good, utterly terribly awful. Because traditional art is meaning-making, a practice with which this film refuses to concern itself.So slap down your nine bucks if you want to see some stunning performances, particularly from relative unknowns, as well as Tilda Swinton glistening in one of her few major roles; to see a beautiful portrait of mid-Century Scotland, with all the fashion and accoutrement that goes with it; to hear a painful and heartfelt score from former Talking Heads member (and Scot) David Byrne; to wish the world were different from the way it is. But don't if only to see a story about people -- or rather, souls. That's not what this is about. Video15479@blogcritics.org Sat, 8 May 2004 00:49:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/01/132816.php Doug ValentaAlso at verveslag.I have to admit that, when it opened in Chicago last night, I thought this was going to be another "so bad it's good" teen movie (which is the only type of movie I seem to be seeing lately). But, nearly ten years after the release of Clueless comes its heir apparent — Mean Girls (also, here). The high art of the teen movie world, Mean Girls, like Clueless, is smart, funny (actually funny), and wise in a genre populated by vapid, unfunny imitations of imitations.Writer/Director Amy Heckerling made Clueless great through the deft selection and use of pop culture references, which have not only stood the test of time, but make the movie play more like a satire of nineties teen culture than a relic of it. Sadly, most of her work since has been unilaterally awful. But I think we can expect more good things from SNL giant Tina Fey now that she's made her screenwriting debut (and has accomplished the feat of adapting a parenting book — Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes — into an entertaining movie).Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who, upon returning for a prolonged research trip to Africa with her academic parents, is forced to leave home schooling to enter the real world of high school for the very first time. She gets picked up by a band of rich, popular girls called "the plastics" who attempt to mold her in their image (shades of Cher, Dionne, and Tai, anyone?). But Cady isn't in it just for kicks. It's all part of a complicated scheme that you'll have to see to believe. In any case, hilarity ensues. No, not hilarity — MEAN.It's interesting to note that Mean Girls used to be a lot more mean. In order to avoid an R rating, a number of the, well, meaner lines were cut or replaced. For example, "pop your cherry" becomes "butter your muffin" (a cryptic phrase that I don't think anyone actually understood); "masturbated with a hot dog" becomes "made out with a hot dog" (how exactly is that supposed to work?); along with the standby curse replacements. But with the heavy dose of "slut," "whore," "bitch," and "dyke," the actual effect of what changes were made is questionable at best.A double fish-out-of-water story (Cady is from Africa, so she knows nothing about modern American culture; but she is also a normal girl masquerading as a mean girl to bring down their tribe), Mean Girls just knows what it's doing. Watch for some classic sequences in which Cady visualizes the teen world in terms of something with which she's familiar — jungle law. Oh yeah, and somebody gets hit by a bus. Video15282@blogcritics.org Sat, 1 May 2004 13:28:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/28/020750.php Doug ValentaAlso at verveslag.The official measure of any cultural movement is whether or not it's caught on in Ohio. Okay, well I made that up. But when the movement has its roots in Europe and maps its hotbeds to trendy corners of major cities, it's not a bad finish line to set. I'm talking, of course (or not so of course), about metrosexuals, who made headlines this weekend in the Akron Beacon Journal. That's right, pretty men in Ohio.So now that metrosexuality has come of age, what more is left for it? Enduring cultural transformation? Flash in the pan? Not quite — like all revolutions, metrosexuality has already begun eating its own children. It isn't happening overnight, and it hasn't stricken everyone and everywhere yet. But in my twenty-something hipster enclave, it's definitely beginning. They're going gay. Or at least bi. Even just curious. They shop, they prim, they gel, and they're making out with each other while drunk the way girls did in the late nineties.Of course, this team-switching undermines the entire notion of the metrosexual movement. This was supposed to be the great liberation of the world's straight men, but it's turning into National Coming Out Day decidedly not but once a year. Everyone thought traditional masculinity was dead. But by all accounts it may be alive and well (though not quite kicking) — it's old-time heterosexuality there on the floor bleeding. Metro is the hip new way to be out about being closet.Except for me. I'm totally straight. Culture15164@blogcritics.org Wed, 28 Apr 2004 02:07:50 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/27/164606.php Doug ValentaAlso at verveslag.Who are Floorbirds? I don't know and neither do you. But their five track album The Sea of Language Around Us hit the net (for download and streaming off their website) yesterday and I'm hooked. Just when you thought Franz Ferdinand was the hottest new thing in indie rock (silly you), here comes a more acoustic Air, a less morbid My Bloody Valentine, a less frightening Lou Reed.What impresses me most about this album (really more a demo than anything else) is what a range is displayed in so few tracks. The Sea opens with "The Planes," a Sigur Ros-ian anthem (except in English, and with a beat). What follows is the demi-poppy "Time Looks Back" — "Touch Me" for a new generation? — and capped off by an early Cat Stevens feeling fifth track. But enough of my drawing vapid comparisons. You should be listening already. Music15153@blogcritics.org Tue, 27 Apr 2004 16:46:06 EDT