Archives for August 2005

Here’s the raw list of sacred cattle proffered by our readers, presented in clever subdivisions. Starting tomorrow I’ll share some of the actual reviews, which were delightfully bitter and bilious. Ebert who?

THE EVER POPULAR

American Beauty (5 mentions)

Lost in Translation (3)

Breaking the Waves (2)

Platoon (2)

Waking Life (2)

Dances with Wolves (2)
Pulp Fiction (2)

CAPITAL-S SACRED

Citizen Kane

The Third Man

Rear Window

Nashville

I RESPECTFULLY PROTEST!

Rushmore

Barcelona

Last Picture Show

Goodfellas

I HEARTILY CONCUR

About Schmidt

Immortal Beloved

Good Will Hunting

As Good as It Gets

The Natural

A FEW PAIRINGS

Schindler’s List and Life Is Beautiful

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Passion of the Christ

2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind

THE CRUISE FACTOR

Vanilla Sky

Magnolia

Collateral

WHO EXACTLY IS GENUFLECTING?

Cheaper by the Dozen

Independence Day

Cabin Boy

Troy

…AND THE REST

Ordinary People, Primary Colors, The Vanishing, The English Patient, The Crying Game, Talented Mr. Ripley, Million Dollar Baby, A Letter to Three Wives, Reds, Short Cuts,
Forrest Gump, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happy Endings, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Goodbye Girl, Talk to Her, State and Main, Andrei Rublev, Gandhi, Z, Dersu Uzala, October,
Mississippi Burning, Dead Man, Everything Quentin Tarantino Has Ever Done, A Clockwork Orange, The Piano, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Don’t think I’m not still sick! I’m mostly better, but not entirely. I had to cover the Fringe Festival last night, and my Wall Street Journal drama column is due this morning. So in lieu of original content, I offer you this snapshot of my recent reading:

– Robert Birnbaum interviews Camille Paglia:

CP: I’m on a crusade–it’s to say to the poets and the artists, “Stop talking to each other. Stop talking to coteries. I despise coteries in any form. You are speaking to a coterie, OK. Stop the snide references to the rest of the world who didn’t vote with you in the last election.” This is big. Because we have all separated again. After 9/11, everyone was united. We are separated again thanks to what has happened in politics. People in the art world are full of [a] sanctimonious sense of superiority to most of America. But they must address America, learn to address America. Yes, have your friends, have the people who support what you are doing in the art world, but you have to recover a sense of the general audience and the same thing I am saying to the far right, get over the sneering at art, the stereotyping–

RB: They started it.

CP: Wait a minute. The far right wouldn’t have any opinions about art if it weren’t for those big incidents in the late ’80s to the ’90s when some stupid work was committing sacrilege.

RB: You’re referring to Andr

Don’t think I’m not still sick! I’m mostly better, but not entirely. I had to cover the Fringe Festival last night, and my Wall Street Journal drama column is due this morning. So in lieu of original content, I offer you this snapshot of my recent reading:

– Robert Birnbaum interviews Camille Paglia:

CP: I’m on a crusade–it’s to say to the poets and the artists, “Stop talking to each other. Stop talking to coteries. I despise coteries in any form. You are speaking to a coterie, OK. Stop the snide references to the rest of the world who didn’t vote with you in the last election.” This is big. Because we have all separated again. After 9/11, everyone was united. We are separated again thanks to what has happened in politics. People in the art world are full of [a] sanctimonious sense of superiority to most of America. But they must address America, learn to address America. Yes, have your friends, have the people who support what you are doing in the art world, but you have to recover a sense of the general audience and the same thing I am saying to the far right, get over the sneering at art, the stereotyping–

RB: They started it.

CP: Wait a minute. The far right wouldn’t have any opinions about art if it weren’t for those big incidents in the late ’80s to the ’90s when some stupid work was committing sacrilege.

RB: You’re referring to Andr

– Amount Scott Bradley was paid in 1954 to compose the musical score to a Tom and Jerry cartoon for MGM: $1,000

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $6,904.77

(Source: Daniel Goldmark, Tunes for ‘Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon)

– Amount Scott Bradley was paid in 1954 to compose the musical score to a Tom and Jerry cartoon for MGM: $1,000

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $6,904.77

(Source: Daniel Goldmark, Tunes for ‘Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon)

“Even a great performance can’t spoil a fine composition.”

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (quoted in Louis Kaufman, A Fiddler’s Tale)

“Even a great performance can’t spoil a fine composition.”

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (quoted in Louis Kaufman, A Fiddler’s Tale)

(1) The computer is the worst enemy of a workaholic with a chest cold.

(2) The iPod is his best friend (especially if he sleeps in a loft).

(3) Don’t watch Red Rock West when you have a fever.

(4) Good movies for invalids: Barbershop, Clueless, Defending Your Life, Speed. (Did you realize that Clueless is now ten years old? Wow.) Also good: Nero Wolfe, Patrick O’Brian, twice- and thrice-read theatrical biographies.

(5) Soup gets tiresome.

(6) Insofar as possible, don’t let unwashed dishes pile up in the sink. The resulting spectacle is depressing and inhibits recovery.

(7) If you have to choose between staying dirty and taking a cold shower, take the shower.

(8) There is no truer friend than the one who offers to run errands for you.

(9) When buying groceries under the influence of antihistamines, don’t just look at the pictures–read the labels.

(10) All cabbies are sadistic psychopaths. Show no weakness!

(11) Yours is not the only blog in the ‘sphere.