March 24, 2004

Four New Yorker Writers Online

In addition to Susan Orlean (whose website includes a weblog by Jason Kottke for the film Adaptation) Rebecca Mead, Malcolm Gladwell, and Michael Specter all provide archives of their writing for the New Yorker on their personal websites: Rebecca Mead breaks out articles, Talk of the Town pieces, and reviews into three pages. Malcolm Gladwell lists his articles and Talk of the Town pieces on one giant archive page. Michael Specter does the same thing: one long archive page. The...
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Posted by greg allen at 06:50 PM

March 22, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-03-29

Issue of 2004-03-29 Posted 2004-03-22 THE TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ AFTER MADRID/ David Remnick on what the train bombings in Spain and the election that followed mean for the world. ON THE CLOCK/ JAM OFF/ Nick Paumgarten on the backstage scene at the jam-band awards. POSTCARD FROM BAGHDAD/ STREET CRIME/ Jon Lee Anderson on how the city is now a much more dangerous place. THE WIRED WORLD/ THE REAL ORKUT/ Jesse Lichtenstein on the eponymous member of a...
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Posted by greg allen at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-03-22

Issue of 2004-03-22 Posted 2004-03-15 THE TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ VICE SQUADS/ Hendrik Hertzberg on the search for Kerry’s right-hand man. THE BEAT/ MAN BLAMES DOG/ Ben McGrath on a wink-catching drug-sniffing canine. DEPT. OF DINING/ AFTERTASTE/ Adam Gopnik bids adieu to La Côte Basque. HIGHER LEARNING/ MAHARISHI PREP/ Rebecca Mead on the teen-age Transcendental Meditation craze. DEPT. OF HOOPLA/ REAL BOHEMIANS/ Dana Goodyear meets the poet Jane Mayhall. LETTER FROM AFGHANISTAN/ Kathy Gannon/ Road Rage/ Risks on...
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Posted by greg allen at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-03-15

Issue of 2004-03-15 Posted 2004-03-08 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ WEDDING BLITZ/ Hendrik Hertzberg on why young conservatives are supporting gay marriage. FIRST PERIOD/ SLUMP/ Alec Wilkinson on Mark Messier and the forlorn sport of hockey. SECOND PERIOD/ RINK RAT IN CHIEF?/ Ben McGrath on John Kerry’s hockey days. THIRD PERIOD/ PUCK FLICK/ Nick Paumgarten watches "Miracle" with Igor Larionov. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ BRING ON THE NANOBUBBLE/ James Surowiecki on how buzzwords sell on Wall Street. LETTER FROM...
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Posted by greg allen at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-03-08

Issue of 2004-03-08 Posted 2004-03-01 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ RECKLESS DRIVER/ Hendrik Hertzberg on the Ralph Nader candidacy. GROVES OF ACADEME/ PAST AND PRESENT PASSIONS/ David Remnick gets the religion scholar Elaine Pagels’s take on Mel Gibson’s movie. FROM RUSSIA/ THE PUTIN TOOTHPICK/ Masha Lipman notices that the Russian President’s face is turning up everywhere. THE BOARDS/ MORE/ Liesl Schillinger on how Yeardley Smith is getting past Lisa Simpson. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ THE GOOD FIGHT/ James Surowiecki...
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Posted by greg allen at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-03-01

Issue of 2004-03-01 Posted 2004-02-23 The Talk of TheTown COMMENT/ TEN YEARS AFTER/ George Packer on fostering democracy in Haiti. ON DECK/ NOTHING BUT THE BEST/ Ben McGrath considers A-Rod’s welcome to the Yankees. JUST LOOKING/ A NEW MALL/ Adam Gopnik browses in the new Time Warner Center. OLD FLAMES/ THE GUARD YEARS/ Jane Mayer talks to an ex-girlfriend of George Bush’s from the Vietnam era. VERSE/ DUET ON MARS/ A poem by John Updike. CAMPAIGN JOURNAL/ LABOR PAINS/...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-02-16

Issue of 2004-02-16 Posted 2004-02-09 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ WARRIORS/ Hendrik Hertzberg on the battle readiness of Bush and Kerry. THE BENCH/ STAR WITNESS/ Jeffrey Toobin at the Martha Stewart trial. DESIGN DEPT./ CITY LIGHTS/ Ben McGrath gets turned on to street lamps. NEW KID ON THE BLOCK DEPT./ NAME THIS JOINT/ Dana Goodyear on an anonymous East Village falafel restaurant. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ THE PIPELINE PROBLEM/ James Surowiecki on what’s ailing big pharmaceutical companies. LETTER FROM...
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Posted by greg allen at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

February 02, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-02-09

Issue of 2004-02-09 Posted 2004-02-02 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ BLAME GAME/ John Cassidy on the weapons inspector David Kay’s testimony to Congress. YOU DON’T SAY DEPT./ CHEW ON/ Ben McGrath considers the newest mental booster—gum chewing. WORKS IN PROGRESS/ TONY STEW/ Rebecca Mead attends a reading of Tony Kushner’s unfinished play. TRACKS/ THE MOUSE THAT REMIXED/ Ben Greenman on the making of "The Grey Album." THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY/ James Surowiecki on Conrad Black’s fatal...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-02-02

Issue of 2004-02-02 Posted 2004-01-26 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ UNSTEADY STATE/ Hendrik Hertzberg parses the President?s State of the Union address. RELOCATION DEPT./ NET LOSS/ Ben McGrath on the Brooklyn Nets? new arena, possibly. LONDON POSTCARD/ DARK MATERIAL/ Louis Menand on Britain?s latest pop-mythology production. THE PICTURES/ AGAINST TYPE/ Hilton Als catches up with Charlize Theron. ELECTION YEAR/ SEVENTEEN OTHER IMPORTANT SWING VOTING GROUPS/ Zev Borow on whom not to forget. CAMPAIGN JOURNAL/ OUT OF IOWA/ Philip...
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Posted by greg allen at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-01-26

Issue of 2004-01-26 Posted 2004-01-19 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ TAXING/ John Cassidy on Paul O?Neill?s deficit message. HAUNTS/ ECTOPLASM!/ Ben McGrath on a ghost, perhaps, at the Maritime Hotel. HEY, PAL DEPT./ OLD HACK/ David Owen hails a taxi historian. GOOD WORKS/ BARELY SHAVERS/ Field Maloney on a group that?s growing mustaches for charity. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ BIG SPACE/ James Surowiecki on the billions behind Bush?s space program. ANNALS OF MEDICINE/ Jerome Groopman/ The Grief Industry/ Does...
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Posted by greg allen at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-01-19

Issue of 2004-01-19 Posted 2004-01-12 The Talk of The Town THE SPORTING LIFE/ HOMECOMING/ Ben McGrath watches Stephon Marbury’s Madison Square Garden début in Coney Island. LOST AND FOUND/ ONE GLOVE/ Nick Paumgarten meets a lady who hunts for lost mittens. HOUSING DEPT./ BUILD YOUR OWN/ Lauren MacIntyre on a couple’s quest to start from scratch. CHECKING IN/ CLEAN GENE/ Calvin Tomkins on Eugene McCarthy’s Presidential preferences. COMMENT/ LATE REVIEW/ Roger Angell on Robert McNamara and "The Fog of...
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Posted by greg allen at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

January 05, 2004

This Week in The New Yorker, 2004-01-12

Issue: 2004-01-12 Posted: 2004-01-05 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/BEST OF THE "BEST"/ Louis Menand on the art of the Top Ten. COLLECTORS/ SQUISHED/ Ben McGrath on the dangers of hoarding. [no, you didn't read this story yet. You read the Times' story on the dangers of hoarding. Collect'em all!] FOSSIL DEPT./ HERE TODAY/ Nick Paumgarten on a department departing the Museum of Natural History. INK/ STILL HAPPENING/ Adam Green meets the last of the great press agents. THE...
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Posted by greg allen at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2003

This Week in The New Yorker, 2003-12-22 & 29

Issue: 2003-12-22 and 29 Posted: 2003-12-15 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ WINNING AND LOSING/ Philip Gourevitch on how Iraq resembles Algeria. PERILS/ SURVIVOR: HOLIDAY EDITION/ Nick Paumgarten prepares for the worst. THE BENCH/ SILLY OLD BEAR V. MOUSE/ Jeffrey Toobin on the characters in a Los Angeles court case. THE STUMP/ DEAN WAY UPTOWN/ Ben McGrath at the Gore endorsement in Harlem. NOTICE/ NOBITUARY/ Andy Borowitz remembers the not yet departed. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ GOING DUTCH/ James Surowiecki...
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Posted by greg allen at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2003

This Week in The New Yorker: 2003-12-15

Issue: 2003-12-15 Posted: 2003-12-08 The Talk of The Town COMMENT/ HAPPY DAYS/ John Cassidy on whether the boom is for real. SEASON'S GREETING/ BRUSH WITH POWER/ Ben McGrath on the artist behind this year’s White House Christmas card. THE GOOD FIGHT/ WHEN EDIBLES ATTACK/ Rebecca Mead reports from the Food Allergy Ball in Manhattan. ON THE BLOCK/ MAKE IT FUNNY/ Tad Friend on how members of the National Lampoon staff went up for sale, at bargain prices. THE FINANCIAL...
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Posted by greg allen at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2003

This Week in The New Yorker: December 8, 2003

Issue: 2003-12-08 Talk of The Town COMMENT/ DEMOCRACY HYPOCRISY/ Nicholas Lemann on what Bush’s love of liberty will deliver. INK/LORD BLACK/ John Cassidy on the F.D.R. biographer and alleged scoundrel Conrad Black. DEPT. OF SOUND/NO. 9/Seth Mnookin talks to Al Green about music, God, and microphones. WELLFLEET POSTCARD/ THE OFF-SEASON/ Philip Hamburger on what’s shaking on the Cape. THE SKY LINE/ MEMORIES/ Paul Goldberger on the World Trade Center memorial. ANNALS OF LAW/ Jeffrey Toobin/ The Great Election Grab/...
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Posted by greg allen at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2003

This Week in The New Yorker, a new service of greg.org

The New Yorker used to not be able to be bothered to publish letters to the editor. For a time, Spy graciously stepped into the breach, printing and answering reader comments for them. Times and editors change, and now instead of letters, the magazine chooses to vex their readers by not offering indices of back issues online. The magazine takes, from an information architecture standpoint, an uncommon approach to its old online content. The site's From The Archive offers...
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Posted by greg allen at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2003

Talk of The Town, Issue of Issue of 2003-10-27

TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ RUSH IN REHAB/ Hendrik Hertzberg on pill-popper Rush Limbaugh's hypocrisy. S.I. DISPATCH/ THE WRECK/ Ben McGrath on the reaction to the Staten Island Ferry disaster. DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY/ NOT LOST IN TRANSLATION/ Boris Fishman witnesses a major kissing of Mikhail Gorbachev at The Pierre. DEPT. OF SIGNAGE/THE MAN AND THE HAND/ Nick Paumgarten talks about the walking man disappearing from the "don't walk" signs. DEPT. OF REMEMBERING/ TWO FROM BERLIN/ Jane Kramer talks September 11th memorials...
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Posted by greg allen at 07:29 PM

October 20, 2003

Talk of the Town, Issue of 2003-10-20

TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ MOVIE STRUCK/ Roger Angell on a life of afternoon cinema. IN THE WINGS/ POLL STARS/Anthony Lane on the screen-to-stump phenomenon. PLAY BALL/ BLEACHER CREATURES/ Ben McGrath on how the crowd goes wild. ON THE AIR/ SUPER, SUPER, SUPER!/ Tad Friend on Sir David Frost’s axis of satire. POSTSCRIPT/ WILLIAM STEIG/ Roger Angell remembers the late artist. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ RIGHT TRADE, WRONG TIME/ James Surowiecki on the late-trading scandal....
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Posted by greg allen at 07:35 PM

Talk of the Town, Some Critics, Issue of 2003-10-20

TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ MOVIE STRUCK/ Roger Angell on a life of afternoon cinema. IN THE WINGS/ POLL STARS/Anthony Lane on the screen-to-stump phenomenon. PLAY BALL/ BLEACHER CREATURES/ Ben McGrath on how the crowd goes wild. ON THE AIR/ SUPER, SUPER, SUPER!/ Tad Friend on Sir David Frost’s axis of satire. POSTSCRIPT/ WILLIAM STEIG/ Roger Angell remembers the late artist. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ RIGHT TRADE, WRONG TIME/ James Surowiecki on the late-trading scandal. THE CRITICS THE THEATRE/ HE SAID,...
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Posted by greg allen at 07:34 PM

October 14, 2003

Talk of The Town, Issue of 2003-10-13

THE TALK OF THE TOWN COMMENT/ SOLO ACT/ Elizabeth Kolbert on the President’s lonely ride. DEPT. OF SPIN/ PACE YOURSELF/ Ben McGrath at last week’s Democratic debate. SHOWTIME/ LAWYER WALKS INTO A BAR/ Ben McGrath at a talent show for New Jersey lawyers. POSTSCRIPT/ GEORGE PLIMPTON/ David Remnick on the writer and Paris Review editor. THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ THE COUP DE GRASSO/ James Surowiecki on the crime of being overpaid....
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Posted by greg allen at 09:21 PM

October 13, 2003

Talk of the Town, Issue of 2003-10-13

TALK OF THE TOWN THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL/ THE "D" WORD/ Jane Mayer on the long shadow of Michael Dukakis. THE HUMAN CONDITION/ AGELESS, GUILTLESS/ Adam Green visits the psychotherapist Albert Ellis’s ninetieth birthday party. MAIN EVENT/ AND IN THIS CORNER/ Ben McGrath watches a talk-radio T.K.O. DEPT. OF DIGESTION/ A MAALOX MOMENT/ Howard Kaplan learns the finer points of sword swallowing. CASUAL/ GEORGE W. BUSH, NEWS JUNKIE/ Andy Borowitz on the White House grapevine. COMMENT/ FRENCH KISSING/ Adam Gopnik on...
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Posted by greg allen at 07:40 PM

September 10, 2003

New Yorker on the WTC memorial and rebuilding

I'm a Paul Goldberger fan, and mad praise for his dogged reporting, following Daniel Libeskind around the country, but I'm not getting anything new from the profile in this week's New Yorker. When I schmoozed him last spring, Goldberger talked with great relish about digging in and laying out the powerful forces shaping the WTC rebuilding process. But this article comes too late to illuminate Libeskind's POV on the Silverstein-Childs hubbub, and too early to capture his reaction to the...
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Posted by greg allen at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2003

On the Under-heralded Designer of The WTC Memorial Site

Part Two of a Washington Post series on the rebuilding of the WTC features George Tamaro, one of the original engineers of the slurry wall which is the centerpiece of Libeskind's memorial site design. The more I think about it, the more similarities I find between this aspect of the Libeskind proposal and Lochnagar Crater, the powerful, preserved, accidental memorial to WWI's Battle of the Somme. [This crater was central to my first short film, Souvenir November 2001, where a...
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Posted by greg allen at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2003

On the artist in Taos

Untitled #7, 1999, Agnes Martin image: zwirnerandwirth.com Lillian Ross makes nice as she hangs out with Agnes Martin, master of minimalistic painting, in Taos. It sounds simple, but don't bother trying this at home: "You paint vertically, but the paintings hang horizontally—there are no drips that way.” In April, Zwirner & Wirth had a small show spanning Martins' five decades of work....
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Posted by greg allen at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2003

Bloghdad.com/Anthony_Lane_Fanclub

Maybe it was the way Rory flaunted his expense account by overpaying for pizza. Maybe it was the promise of more back issues of the New Yorker, (Anthony Lane's X2 review gets a specific mention. Whose yer publicist, Tony? Day-amn!) Whatever, it worked. The Guardian's Rory McCarthy meets, profiles, and signs Salam Pax to write Baghdad Blog for the paper. It'll be what Britons call a "fortnightly" gig. [putting that in cross-Atlantic perspective: less than Tina Brown, Columnist but far...
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Posted by greg allen at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2003

Something about this iLoo thing still stinks

iTunes, iPod, iMovie, iCal, iLife, I know what company all these brands come from. And I know what company immediately came to mind when I heard Microsoft was calling their "so stupid it must be a mistake, a hoax, or an Onion story" toilet an iLoo. What I don't get is why, when Microsoft sidles up Apple's brand, lets loose with this iLoo story, then walks away making a dumb face, trying to pretend they didn't cut the cheese, no...
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Posted by greg allen at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2003

Adam Gopnik's Metropolitan Diary

Dear Diary: To be filed under "T for That's New Yorkers for ya": Setting: The M4 Limited. Dramatis Personae: the commuting population of Manhattan, and a male writer of a certain age, wearing an insouciantly knotted ascot, who appears to have recently traveled to France. The population throws off dozens of make-your-day anecdotes, which the straphanging scribe strains to sample. Writer [thinking out loud]: "Oh-la-la, this is great material! Certainement, I could get 3,000 words out of this, pas de...
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Posted by greg allen at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 31, 2003

Bloghdad.com/MidEast/Takeover/Beta-Test

In Washington Monthly, Joshua Micah Marshall (his stellar weblog: Talking Points Memo) has a sobering look at the neocon view of Baghdad-as-beta for "rolling the table," i.e., regime changing the entire Middle East. Slate's Kaus realizes that this explains Rumsfeld's hubris and micromanaging (cf. Sy Hersh) a small military footprint--so Baghdad's fall puts Teheran, Damascus, and Riyadh (!?!) on notice. One conclusion of Marshall's article: this neocon war strategy is self-fulfilling prophecy; the more they pursue it, the more "painfully...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2003

...And I Feel Fine (Except For This Gnawing Sense Of Dread)

Yes, I was glad to see you, and that was a Bible in my pocket. As I tee up to write what appears below, I just realized my schedule yesterday (aka the Sabbath)--church in the morning to the Armory Show (similarities to Gilligan's Island: began as 3-hour tour, saves self with pleasantly endless supply of special guest stars) to a friend's dinner for a visiting artist--and my increasing revulsion at politicians' Christian justification for war, left me toting the Good...
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Posted by greg allen at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2003

The New Yorker On Making Movies, On Remembering War

Tad Friend attends the hilariously useless Jean Doumanian seminar on "How to Get Your Play or Movie Produced." Here, Doumanian ("You may know me from such films as "Woody Allen sued me and my bankrolling boyfriend.") advises an attendee on getting distribution for her film: "Try to get a European sales agent," Doumanian suggested. "There's a fellow named John Sloss—" "How do you spell it?" "I don't know," Doumanian said. "I've never worked with him." Roger Angell writes with reticence...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2003

On WTC Site Designs

What I hope doesn't carry through from the plans the LMDC selected from Daniel Libeskind and THINK Team: Needlessly symbolic height (1,776 feet) Why not two 911' high towers? Duh, because. Single high-profile elements that completely draw attention away from the plan and architecture of the rest of the site. What I hope does carry through: "The Bathtub" as part of the memorial (Read Edith Iglauer's 1972 New Yorker article about its construction, as discussed here.) Paul Goldberger's called-for "Eiffel...
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Posted by greg allen at 01:41 AM | Comments (0)

January 27, 2003

Can't Wait To See It

Anthony Lane on Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's documentary, Lost in La Mancha: "For anyone who suffers from the wish to make movies, or who fears that this terrible condition may strike at any time, here is the cure."...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2002

WTC Site Designs Revealed While Director Poaches Memorial-Friendly Media

If the 3+ hour multimedia press conference for around 25 brand name architects to present their proposals for the World Trade Center site were Saks, I was the chick selling hand-beaded mittens from a card table on the sidewalk. Actually, as a media event, it was more wholesale than retail; press and LMDC staffers outnumbered Invited Guests about 3:1. So rather than just spam the (presumably interested in memorials) crowd with cards for tomorrow's screening, I switched to providing...
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Posted by greg allen at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2002

About Schmidt: The Thinking Person's "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding"

Nobody's Perfect, indeed. If Anthony Lane can't get beyond Jack's celebrity, fine. He saw the movie at the NY Film Fest opening. His unabashed pinky-extended criticism almost always gives an enjoyable read. (Need some holiday cheer? Get his collected reviews, Nobody's Perfect, today Don't even think you can stuff a stocking with it or take it on a plane, though.) But Salon's review by Charles Taylor seems to be such a bitter, willful misread of the film, it defies explanation....
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Posted by greg allen at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2002

Some Quotes and Links

"Asbury's book is a tribute to the magical power of naming: long stretches of 'Gangs [of New York]' are taken up by lists of gangs and villains and even fire engines, and, like the lists of ships in the Iliad, they are essential to the effect...We read of Daybreak Boys, Buckoos, Hookers, Swamp Angels, Slaughter Housers, Short Tails, Patsy Conroys, and the Border Gang, of Chichesters, Roach Guards, Plug Uglies, and Shirt Tails, and we melt." -- Adam Gopnik discussing...
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Posted by greg allen at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2002

Porn ('n Chicken) on the Internet? What'll they think of next?

James "Sweet Jimmy the Benevolent Pimp" Ponsoldt was a co-founder of Porn 'n Chicken, a Yale timekiller-cum-media spoof-cum-Comedy Central movie. (If that sentence doesn't get this weblog banned by your corporate firewall, it'll at least get you a reprimand at your performance review.) Tad Friend's New Yorker piece contains Jimmy's description of his latest project: "It's 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' set in rural Appalachia," he said, "with themes of rifts between generations, loneliness, becoming a man, and OxyContin addiction."...
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Posted by greg allen at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)

September 30, 2002

carry-on luggage, four weeks later

Nearly a month after an accidental click into a carry-on luggage article brought my surfing to a teary halt, it's okay to laugh again. In this week's New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten tells of of several successful attempts to carry Emmy Award statuettes (complete with "sharp-tipped wings"...shaped like "serrated steak knives") onto transatlantic flights. [Apparently, none of the comedy writers or filmmakers in the story are yet listed on Ashcroft's dissenter=terrorist no-fly list or are giants of Iranian cinema.]...
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Posted by greg allen at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2002

On Scripted vs Ad-libbed or Improvised in re Full Frontal and the President of the United States

This weekend, after seeing Full Frontal, we discussed the dialogue at length. My (grew-up-on-the-stage) wife spotted a lot of weak improv, or weakly directed improv--actors left to figure it out for themselves and, more often than not, not pulling it off. Besotted Soderbergher that I am (nothing like three DVD commentaries in the last two weeks to make you feel like you know the director.), I'd argued that surely Soderbergh knew what's up; he's shooting a script that's written to...
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Posted by greg allen at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2002

On Full Frontal and the opening of Hollywood's kimono

The reviews of Full Frontal are coming in, and it's not sounding good. Here's a broad cross-section from the global media: New York Press ("Even a bad Steven Soderbergh movie is worth seeing, and Full Frontal is worth seeing."); New Yorker ("...perhaps the most naïvely awful movie I've seen from the hand of a major director."); the New York Observer("...reminds me how new movies like Full Frontal bring out all the Old Hollywood in me. Still, I liked seeing...
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Posted by greg allen at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2002

Souvenir (November 2001), Bruegel, Houstonization, The WTC

Rewatching Souvenir (November 2001) a dozen+ times in the last 24 hours, I'd begun to wonder what it can actually contribute to the increasing volume of the WTC memorial/rebuilding debate. There was 4,000-participant offsite Saturday (with a 200-participant makeup session Monday for observant Jews and Hamptonites, I guess). Everyone and their dog is weighing in on the lameness of the Port Authority-driven devil's choice: Memorial Office Park or Memorial Mall, but is this looming Houstonization of Ground Zero possibly the...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2002

The Look of DV: Tadpole vs. Full Frontal

"The advantage of [shooting on digital video] is that nobody knows, or at least cares, that you're making a movie; the disadvantage...is that the end product appears to have been filmed through a triple layer of bubble wrap." - from Anthony Lane's New Yorker review of Tadpole, the latest from IFC Productions' InDigEnt. Compare this to the complicated process Steven Soderbergh used to get "enhanced graininess" on his new DV movie, Full Frontal (from an apple.com article): Finish FotoKem received...
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Posted by greg allen at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2002

Gabriel Orozco at Documenta 11

Contrary to one writer's opinion, Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican who can make pottery. After seeing Peter Schjeldahl's misguided critique of Orozco's work at Documenta 11 cited on ArtKrush to support an even broad(er)side on the state of contemporary art, I have to call bulls*** [Sorry, Mom.] on the whole thing. Orozco's Documenta 11 installation, Cazuelas (Beginnings), is comprised of "thrown" clay bowls. While the clay was still wet, Orozco threw smaller balls of clay into the bowls, where they...
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Posted by greg allen at 01:43 AM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2002

On Maya Lin's ninja-like approach to the WTC Memorial

There's an interesting article by Louis Menand in this week's New Yorker about Maya Lin called "The Reluctant Memorialist." He talks about her early rejection of any WTC Memorial-related requests and about her recent informal advisory work for the decisionmakers (as someone who's "been through the process.") In talking about Lin's reticence and justifiable anger at the Viet Nam memorial process (which sounds horrific, frankly, and doesn't give me too much hope for New York City's efforts), it's strange that...
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Posted by greg allen at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2002

Peter Schjeldahl reviews Documenta 11

Peter Schjeldahl reviews Documenta 11 in this week's New Yorker. He snidely and wearily compliments the show for its "robust, mature...festivalism," which I take to mean they figured out how to show video-based works. But he at least notices two of my Documenta favorites. On Amar Kanwar's documentary: "a stunning exploration of the Pakistani-Indian military frontier in Kashmir...[and] skillful, alluring, and notably uncomplaining." (Gee, sorry to disappoint you, Peter.) On Gabriel Orozco's terra cotta bowls: the "always witty" artist's "work's...
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Posted by greg allen at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2002

Director's Headshot

One of the reasons I'd delayed submitting to some festivals was (of all things) my lack of a "director's photo (B/W)," which some festivals require. Last week, Roe Ethridge, a friend and artist whose work I've collected for three-plus years, took some photos of me. In the pinch, I scanned in a Polaroid and printed it out for the submission packets, but there are real prints on the way. Roe works as a photographer for a huge pile of magazines....
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Posted by greg allen at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2002

Found this on Slate: An

Found this on Slate: An interesting proposal for a World Trade Center memorial by Fred Bernstein, an architecture writer (for the NYTimes, among others, it seems). Basically, it's twin tower-sized piers with the names of those killed placed on the appropriate "floor." The piers would be oriented toward Ellis and Liberty islands. While I'm dubious of the mirror-like conceptual similarity to Maya Lin's Viet Nam memorial, which we visited last weekend (i.e., the orientation, the name placement mechanism), the simplicity...
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Posted by greg allen at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)