Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation By David Denby Simon & Schuster, 128 pages, $15.95 If David Denby—New Yorker movie critic, occasional cultural commentator, erstwhile online pornography addict—hoped to inoculate himself against snark by parsing it for over 100 pages, well … oh, boy. This isn’t intended meanly or personally or to ruin “our” conversation (whoever “we” might be—Americans? The quivering media elite?), but Mr. Denby’s efforts feel slight and second-rate when compared with those of... READ MORE»
Critics are falling all over themselves to laud Gus Van Sant's Milk. Some seem to love one scene in particular: A.O. Scott, The New York Times: One of the first scenes in 'Milk' is of a pick-up in a New York subway station. It’s 1970, and an insurance executive in a suit and tie catches sight of a beautiful, scruffy younger man — the phrase 'angel-headed hipster' comes to mind — and banters with him on... READ MORE»
On the eve of Thanksgiving, The New York Times' Glenn Collins sat down with Gael Greene, New York Magazine's dismissed "Insatiable Critic." Mr. Collins called Ms. Greene, "The priestess of radicchio, beurre blanc and arugula," but also noted that the critic had "become an attenuating natural resource at New York since giving up her weekly chief reviewer’s role eight years ago." It wasn't always so. Ms. Greene was once so closely associated with the magazine that... READ MORE»
Add another trend piece to the ever-growing 'Internet Porn Addiction Ruins Relationships' canon. This month, Details' Em & Lo offer Jerking Off Is the New Infidelity (subhed: "Is your secret habit causing your marriage to slip through your fingers?"), in which we learn that, "While some guys store everyday images and encounters to fuel their imaginations, many go straight for the porn." Sadly, the article was released too prematurely (tee-hee) to include this month's poster... READ MORE»
By | August 4, 2006 | 7:45 am
Introducing an occasional scorecard for New York's most dynamic gossip columnist. Today's Post gives Cindy Adams a much-deserved page-one teaser: "WTC: Why I hate this lousy movie." Inside, on page 14, Cindy--self-nominated as "New York's watchdog" (motion seconded! And carried!)--touches all the critical bases: * Filmgoing experience? "Slow-moving and formulaic." * Commercial prospects? Oliver Stone's "handlers are moving him around with a tweezer. Must be, like on that actual day itself, they, too, can smell... READ MORE»
By | January 6, 2006 | 3:48 am
"The slender Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (from "Bend It Like Beckham") has widely spaced blue eyes, slightly flaring nostrils, and a flattened upper lip—he can look pensive or brutally calculating at will.[...]"Scarlett Johansson wears her blond hair up, which brings out the oval shape of her face and the soft beauty of her features, and she, too, has an unusual upper lip, curved and fleshy, and a low, smoky voice." - GAME PLAYING, by... READ MORE»
Read all about it!... READ MORE»
DENBY: 'IT'S DISASTROUS' Surreal Season of Discontent As Highbrows Take... READ MORE»
American Sucker , by David Denby. Little, Brown, 337 pages,... READ MORE»
