"God bless them, they were so young, with their hair down to their shoulders and carrying all those books.” This wistful observation comes from an aging, drunken, failed poet in The Savage Detectives, the grand novel that made Roberto Bolaño famous in Latin America when it was published in 1998. The tension between vitality and Read More
For some reason, flights heading toward a place always seem to be filled with people from that place. Why is this? Should the seats not be filled with a 50/50 ratio of natives to tourists? We all leave home and then we all return, with the possible exception of escaped convicts. Or people from Bali Read More
A week ago last Saturday, the day before Mexico’s Presidential election, I was in Mexico City’s central district, crushed by thousands of people waving yellow flags and parading toward the city’s giant plaza. Young activists, middle-aged couples and squat old women in shawls shouted “Obrador! Obrador!” An S.U.V. squeezed through the crowd. Its door opened Read More
Have you watched Ray Suarez of the NewsHour from Mexico City? He seems a different person entirely from the grim professional at the desk back in Virginia, or wherever they be. He's impassioned, fuerte, and alive. He seems thrilled to be bringing us the news; and I'm thrilled to receive it. Of course I Read More
I was talking to a woman I know about my Tony Scott Disorder Theory. That in his last two films, Man on Fire and the sadly neglected (though profoundly insane) Domino, Tony Scott has done what his brother Ridley Scott had done with Blade Runner: given us the most hallucinatory accurate visual embodiment of the Read More
I was talking to a woman I know about my Tony Scott Disorder Theory. That in his last two films, Man on Fire and the sadly neglected (though profoundly insane) Domino, Tony Scott has done what his brother Ridley Scott had done with Blade Runner: given us the most hallucinatory accurate visual embodiment of the Read More
Joe Roth’s Freedomland, from a screenplay by Richard Price, based on his novel, has received mostly unfavorable reviews (and a scattering of favorable ones), though I am not sure why. This is to say that I was initially drawn to the movie by my curiosity about what Mr. Price was up to these days in Read More
In a glut of winter junk films hell-bent on reducing movie theaters to cinematic waste-disposal facilities, you can now add Freedomland—an unsalvageable disaster all the more dismaying because it stars Julianne Moore and Samuel L. Jackson and boasts a screenplay by Richard Price, based on his novel of the same title. All three have been Read More
Richard Shepard’s The Matador, from his own screenplay, casts Pierce Brosnan in his first role since he was dropped from the James Bond series. This is to say that if the 52-year-old Mr. Brosnan were still on board as 007, he wouldn’t have been allowed to branch out in The Matador as a privately hired Read More
Richard Shepard’s The Matador, from his own screenplay, casts Pierce Brosnan in his first role since he was dropped from the James Bond series. This is to say that if the 52-year-old Mr. Brosnan were still on board as 007, he wouldn’t have been allowed to branch out in The Matador as a privately hired Read More
The Mexican Cultural Institute has been making the rounds of various community boards this summer, seeking approval for a massive, Manhattan-wide temporary art installation, which will project different Mexican-themed art pieces on notable buildings throughout the city sometime in October. The project is an outgrowth of the award-winning ABCDF: Diccionario Grafico de la Ciudad de Read More
Our alert Mexico City correspondent tells us Bloomberg advisor Jonathan Capehart accompanied Al Sharpton on his mission to chide the Mexican president yesterday, something Capehart's office confirmed. Capehart, formerly of the Daily News, has been an informal Bloomberg advisor since working on his first campaign, and remains close to Mike. He's been with Read More
The Sun has a must-read from Mexico City, where a Spanish-speaking reporter spent time reviewing Giuliani Partners' legacy there. Not much to write home about, it turns out. "Two years later, the cheering has stopped. In January 2005, Mexico City's new police chief, Joel Ortega, told local reporters, 'I am no fan of Giuliani.' Read More
Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarritu's Amores Perros , from a screenplay by Guillermo Arriago, is one of
the most honored and most expertly articulated Mexican films of recent years. A nominee for Best Foreign Language Film by both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Foreign Press Association (which doles out the Golden Globes), this Read More