[contextly_auto_sidebar id="aA6rMNBdTA1u43J91OGEfmvqLnJK7cWf"] WITH an awful and low-yielding summer movie season recently concluded, I've been meaning to try to make sense of the continued decline of grownup film, independent and otherwise. Two LA Times stories get at the problem, which is both economic and aesthetic. The first story, by Josh Rottenberg, takes the point of view of … [Read more...]
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hHJ8eiJnuFjsqO6u5KIkazfFviuefQB1"] BY now it's pretty well know that the comedian best know for "King Tut" and the arrow through the head is not just another show-business dilettante: This dude is a real and committed musician. But even with high expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by the strength and seriousness of Martin's banjo playing and the bluegrass group … [Read more...]
Hollywood Novelist Bruce Wagner
A FEW years back I spent some time at the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge with Bruce Wagner, who was much more at home there than I was. (He grew up nearby and has spent his career as a writer skewering Hollywood.)Wagner has a new novel, Dead Stars, out, and returns to his main subject, the excesses of the movie world and its network of agents, moneymen, wannabes and so on.When he and I spoke, … [Read more...]
Farewell to Gore Vidal
MUCH of the literary world is mourning Gore Vidal, who died at his home here in the Hollywood Hills. Vidal was important, of course, as a social and political critic as well as a as a novelist. (He was also of course, an actor, television writer, playwright, bon vivant, curmudgeon, and so on.)Photo by Carl Van VechtenI encountered Vidal just twice -- once by phone, for a story I wrote after the … [Read more...]