Where the Wild Things Are as family therapy

Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is kind of like a long, whacked-out family therapy session.  Maurice Sendak has commented that the monsters in the book are all based on his Polish-Jewish aunts and uncles back in 1930s Brooklyn.  Homage seems to be paid in the Wild Things’ names in the movie: Judith, Ira, [...]

Torture Porn Lit

Just read Heartsick by Chelsea Cain which I picked up looking for something else because, I think, Amazon named it the top thriller of 2007.
I didn’t altogether enjoy it — it seemed derivative (of Silence of the Lambs, although it does have the wit tacitly to acknowledge the debt when the psycho killer mockingly refers [...]

Netflix/ Movie Roundup

I can No Longer Hear the Guitar. One of those movies that was on the Netflix queue but now I can’t remember exactly what led me to it.  It’s a 1991 Phillipe Garrell movie based on his ten-year affair with Nico (the German model/ original Velvet Underground singer).  What was disconcerting is that the Nico [...]

The “Romanian abortion movie”

I finally watched “the Romanian abortion movie,” Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.  This was the film that won the Cannes Palme D’Or in 2007 and, along with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (by a different director), has been heralded as a standard-bearer of a Romanian new wave of cinema.
I’ve had both [...]

Movie Roundup: Gran Torino, Frozen River, Coraline, Happy-Go-Lucky

We went to see Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino and rented Frozen River (the indie movie for which Melissa Leo got a surprise nomination for Best Actress) soon after. Both are Obama-moment films, I thought, with a narrative drive towards an ethnically-diverse/ multi-racial family, and a repudiation of old-style (racist) whiteness or white Americanness.  In [...]

James Franco discusses Carl Wilson’s Celine Dion book

Very weird… James Franco discusses Carl Wilson’s Celine Dion book on the Oscars red carpet — by way of making excuses for why he does not watch escapist/bad t.v. but intends to do so soon.  Here’s my earlier link to the book.

Franco is doing an MFA poetry program, so I knew he was probably more [...]

Ian Curtis/ Kurt Cobain

Watched the Anton Corbijn biopic of Ian Curtis (Joy Division’s singer who committed suicide in 1980 at age 23), Control.  Enjoyed it a lot.  The musical performances, all recorded by the actors, are pretty uncannily good and Sam Riley is a dead ringer for Curtis.  If they toured as the Unknown Pleasures, a Joy [...]

Seeing “The Tale of Despereaux” with Celie

Sarah took Iris to see the animated movie “The Tale of Despereaux” a few days ago.  Celie thought that it would be too scary and decided not to go, and then bitterly regretted the decision an hour later.  So, she and I went yesterday.
It’s a pretty cute and a beautifully animated movie.  It was a [...]

New Moonraking Feature

What I’m listening to/watching/reading
1/12/09

First episode of the new season of Damages on FX, with Glenn Close, Ted Danson and now William Hurt.  Wednesday nights.  We watched the first season on DVD — it’s great; very over the top with countless double-crosses, like some overheated old noir.  The NY Times review complained that the new season [...]

R.I.P. Rudy Ray Moore

R.I.P. Rudy Ray Moore.
“I’m the one that had the elephants roosting in trees and all the ants in BVDs.”

NY Times Obit.