The script for Ghost World is a collaboration between director Terry Zwigoff and comic book artist Daniel Clowes, whose graphic novel of the same title forms the basis of the story. The carefulness of their adaptation is evident in the fact that the comic book source isn’t readily apparent. Only after the movie is over […]
Thomas Schur
Posted inFilm & Television
The Discreet Charm of Hollywood Royalty
The Anniversary Party is about early middle age, with a treatment of its subject as exclusive as the Hollywood party it chronicles. All of the characters are 30-something, and the film bears an uncanny resemblance to the late-’80s television program so titled–which anticipated the current era of David E. Kelly television dramas. Like the TV […]
Posted inGuides
Foreign Exchanges
To get to Todd Fjelsted’s office on the campus of SAS Institute in Cary, you must walk through corridors that perfectly embody a corporate aesthetic–slick, homogenous surfaces; arid groupings of nondescript furniture; watercolor paintings–behind glass, in steel frames. “For creative types, this can be a distraction,” Fjelsted remarks. Once inside his office, however, the blandness […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Ghost in the Machine
Watching a contemporary Hollywood movie is like watching an assembly line in action. A series of pre-cut images passes by for our inspection and approval, producing a tedium occasionally interrupted by the image that fails to conform to specification, the glitch that disturbs the assembly line’s otherwise relentless progress. These interruptions signal moments when the […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Pulped Pooches
More than one movie critic has compared director Alejandro Iñrritu’s Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch) to Pulp Fiction, describing it as a south-of-the-border imitation of Quentin Tarantino’s highly influential magnum opus. Without a doubt, there are points of connection between the two movies. Both construct their narratives from separate stories that are made to collide […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Family Jewels
Throughout Rififi, a steady rain pours–not a downpour, but a drizzle that pools in the most unlikely places: in a lover’s bathtub, in an addict’s sink, on a jewel thief’s brow. Perhaps this explains the wealth of dome-like objects in the movie, the ubiquitous umbrellas, hats, and lampshades populating the film’s Paris setting. In fact, […]
Posted inArt
Beyond Therapy
Alain de Botton’s books are seductive. The clarity of their prose is exemplary, the certainty of their ideas is reassuring, and what is more, they promise to make us healthier, happier human beings. You could say that de Botton writes self-help books, but from the outskirts of that industry. Typically, self-help books dice their advice […]
Posted inFilm & Television
When Harry Met Ally
Bridget Jones’s Diary is set in a yuppie milieu, in what is supposed to be London but could just as easily be New York or Philadelphia. The action occurs in three different spaces: Bridget’s cozy bachelor-girl apartment; the brick-exposed, primary color environment of the office in which she supposedly works; and the intermediary spaces where […]