With its last episode airing Sunday, I revisited my 2005 piece about Lost and was pleased that nothing in it embarrassed me – even though what the show has become would be incomprehensible to somebody who stopped watching way back then.
The Brown Bunny gave Roger Ebert cancer, and it features a real blowjob. And the girlfriend is dead. In 18 words, I’ve summarized the hullabaloo surrounding (and the post-climactic revelation of) Vincent Gallo’s shockingly vain vanity project from 2003. I can even spare you from the “boring” parts of the movie – basically the first 80 of its 93 minutes – and help you indulge whatever prurient curiosity you might have by pointing to an in-depth description/analysis and video of the oral-sex scene. But the film as a whole is actually oddly fascinating, especially in the context of its initial critical drubbing and the filmmaker’s reaction to that reception.
Ibetolis, the man behind Film for the Soul, has undertaken a massive project called “Counting Down the Zeroes,” in which he devotes a month to the movies of one year in the current decade. I don’t understand the mechanics of his bending of space and time, but apparently 2000 ends on April 19, after which 2001 begins.
Squish created what he called the “Favorite Film Characters Meme,” and he was unkind enough to tag me. And while I’m skeptical that anything can be called a “meme” at the outset, I’m game. Slow, but game.
Roger Ebert, in his December 17 “Answer Man” column, quoted this essay on Magnolia. Also: Ebert’s November 27 “Great Movies” essay on Magnolia.
For the first time since fall 2006, I updated the 100 Favorite Movies feature of Culture Snob. Thirteen movies were added, and 29 went away. Yes, “100 Favorite Movies” for two years listed 116 movies. I could explain and justify this mathematical conflict, but I’ll spare you; just call me an idjit instead.
A common regret is watching blog-a-thons come and go with nary a contribution from Culture Snob. So I was overjoyed to see the announcement at He Shot Cyrus for the “My Best Post Blog-a-thon”: “Everyone should participate because here’s the best part: You’ve already written your entry!” What surprised me was how easy the decision was.
Some marriages come with two microwave ovens or two sets of dishes. Ours did, too, but it also came with two copies of Infinite Jest. This speaks less to our reading habits than our book-buying habits. I do not believe that Bride of Culture Snob has read David Foster Wallace’s doorstop from 1996. I didn’t get far enough to invoke the 69-page rule, which dictates that I must finish a book once I’ve gotten to that point. So I won’t tell you – now that he’s killed himself at age 46 – that I devoured every word he wrote, or that I’ve memorized favorite passages, or that I’ve ranked my favorite Wallace foot/end notes.
So it was written, and I agreed. On the other hand … .
We were in the play area of the department store – most likely building things with Legos – and two girls were taking great delight in excluding me. They were speaking a language I didn’t understand, and it wasn’t exactly a private conversation. They would glance my way during their exchange and occasionally laugh. I felt mocked, which was exactly what they wanted. They were speaking Pig Latin, I figured out later. Of course, Pig Latin is only effective as a private language through a certain age, but we update and upgrade our codes throughout our lives.
