Obama Plays Forrest Gump
By Kyle | May 15, 2012
The president has taken to rewriting official online biographies of other presidents in order to insert himself, and some idle boasting about same, to an entry for, say, Calvin Coolidge or Ronald Reagan. More hilarious than despicable, I guess. In the past week I’ve started to think, for the first time, that Romney is the more likely winner this fall. The lead idea in people’s minds seems to be “Return to Normalcy.” Retaking the Senate will not be enough to stop the astonishing Executive Branch overreach of this profoundly misguided administration.
Topics: Barack Obama | 2 Comments »
“George Galloway Is a Muslim”
By Kyle | May 14, 2012
The New Statesman reports that George Galloway, the MP who recently regained his place in Parliament, secretly converted to Islam. Says Jemima Khan in The New Statesman:
“George Galloway, MP for Bradford West, is a Muslim. He converted more than ten years ago in a ceremony at a hotel in Kilburn, north-west London, attended by members of the Muslim Association of Great Britain. Those close to him know this. The rest of the world, including his Muslim constituents, does not.
“‘So you converted?’ I ask, at the end of our lunch….
“‘I can’t answer that. God knows who is a Muslim….’ he answers breezily.
“”I know someone who attended your shahadah [the Muslim conversion ceremony].’ He stares at me across the table, penetrating blue eyes squinted, pausing for the first time in an hour….”
Throughout the interview with Khan, Galloway deflects questions on his being a Muslim. When his special adviser is asked why Galloway won’t publicly admit to being a Muslim, she replies, “Jemima, you know how it is….”
Galloway was once captured on video declaring, to Saddam Hussein, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.”
The New Statesman is being sued by Galloway over the story.
Topics: Britain, Politics | 2 Comments »
America’s Top TV Show
By Kyle | May 13, 2012
In my Sunday column I talk to the show runner of “NCIS” and explore why it’s America’s top scripted show. The season finale is Tuesday.
Topics: Movies | No Comments »
What a Composite Is
By Kyle | May 9, 2012
Reading about Obama’s “composite,” i.e. fictionalized, girlfriends made me think of the definitive takedown of the notion of the “composite” in Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan.” Nick Smith (Chris Eigeman) spins a tall tale about heel Rick Von Sloneker and the way he supposedly drove an innocent girl named Polly Perkins to suicide. “There isn’t any Polly Perkins,” Sloneker says with a sneer, confronting Smith. “Go on. Tell them you made it up.” When confronted, Smith says, “There is no one Polly Perkins. There are many of them! Polly is a composite! Like New York Magazine does!” Challenged to name one girl, Smith says, “Girls that have been degraded by you don’t need the further humiliation of having their names bandied about non-exclusive Park Avenue afterparties.”
The original bogus story Smith tells, the lies becoming increasingly ridiculous in a preppy precedent for Dr. Evil’s “summers in Rangoon, luge lessons” monologue.
“He is terrible! I shouldn’t have to go into all the sordid details….I’ll tell you about Rick von Sloneker. Does the name Polly Perkins mean anything to you? She grew up in Virginia. A horse fanatic since childhood. Went to one of those horsey girls’ schools. Garrison Forrest I think. Sometime in her senior year she became depressed. Partly it was finally becoming disillusioned with horses. But there were some real psychological problems too. That summer she got a job in Edgartown and seemed completely recovered except for a couple of idiosyncracies. She would only dress in blue and she wouldn’t eat hamburgers unless they were completely well done. Any hint of redness and she’d send them back. Out of loyalty to her boyfriend in Virginia, she’d only go on group dates. Never individual ones. Von Sloneker met her when he came to Edgartown for the regatta. She showed no interest in him at first, which made sense because he’s a completely uninteresting guy but for someone like von Sloneker that’s just exciting. So! He swung into action with a full rigamarole about how desperately in love he was with her. How she was the first girl that ever made him feel that way. How they owed it to themselves to live life to the fullest. Polly had meanwhile quit her summer job and joined his boat for the rest of the cruise. But he now completely ignored her. She in turn became obsessed with him. Polly was a bit of a masochist, and prone to drink too much. Von Sloneker exploited this to get her drunk and had her — do you know what pulling a train means? When Von Sloneker had gotten her blind drunk one night he talked her into pulling a train. Him, Victor Lenley, the other crew member. When she arrived at Wheaton for her first semester she was acting very strangely. Always wearing the same clothes. Never washing except just putting on more and more makeup and perfume. She’d remain silent for hours and then talk obsessively about Paul McCartney. After two weeks she was sent to McLean for treatment but was able to go home, to Virginia, for Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving she went into their stables and killed herself.”
Topics: Movies | 1 Comment »
Maurice Sendak Is Dead
By Kyle | May 8, 2012
One of the first pieces of gossip I ever heard in New York, from my (gay) roommate (well known to commenter Christopher), was that “Maurice Sendak is a dirty old man who loves little boys,” i.e., younger men. Also he apparently was our neighbor on the Upper West Side. I certainly never saw “Where the Wild Things Are” quite the same way again — it’s about a beautiful, innocent, Cupid-lipped and downy-skinned young boy getting introduced to a world of much older, larger, hairier, considerably less innocent and uglier trolls and monsters –and all of them having a delightful group “wild rumpus” together without the boy’s mother ever being the wiser. Hooray! I tend to think Sendak rather enjoyed sneaking one past the goalposts of literal thinking, as it were.
But then again I was trained as a literary critic at Yale and everyone has always told me I read too much into things ever since. (Though not at Yale, where reading too much into everything was pretty much the motto of the English and Literature departments.) I am quite certain that in this case, as in all others, everyone is probably right.
Topics: Books | 4 Comments »
Movie Twist of the Week
By Kyle | May 8, 2012
I was of two minds on “Cafe de Flore,” which won a bunch of awards up in Canada. (The Oscars are merely the Genies of America’s Hat). I was partially intrigued by the dreaminess of the movie, which tells two apparently unrelated stories. One is about a successful (indeed, irritatingly smug) Montreal deejay who leaves his wife and two beautiful daughters for another woman and tells a shrink how each woman is his soulmate….but one was just a bit matier than the other. This story takes place in the present day.
In the other story, Vanessa Paradis (who is really quite good) plays a working-class woman in Paris in 1969 whose son has Down Syndrome. She decides she is going to fully devote herself to raising the kid as normally as possible, although she learn that his life expectancy is about 25. Particularly on the heels of George Will’s typically moving but unsentimental column about his son Jon, who is now 40 and has Down Syndrome, I found the Paris portions of the story to be haunting. The Paradis character, like the Wills, is advised to simply forget about her son and send him off to be institutionalized. She steadfastly refuses, saying it’s our responsbility to educate our children.
But — what do the two stories have in common? We don’t find out until the final act. Want to know what happens? Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Movies | 3 Comments »
On ‘The Tyranny of Cliches’
By Kyle | May 7, 2012
In my Sunday column I join others in praise of Jonah Goldberg’s sharp and funny followup to “Liberal Fascism,” “The Tyranny of Cliches.”
Topics: Books | No Comments »
Review: “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
By Kyle | May 4, 2012
The treacly tracks of director John Madden are all over the Golden Years comedy “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” My review is up.
Topics: Movies | No Comments »
Samuel L. Jackson Takes on Critic
By Kyle | May 4, 2012
I doubt the New York Times staff is losing much sleep after Samuel L. Jackson took a childish little Twitter slap at one of its critics. Jackson doesn’t sound all that witty when he doesn’t have Joss Whedon or Quentin Tarantino writing his lines for him. The man is, what, nearly 60? It hurts his feelings if a movie that’s going to gross a billion dollars gets a couple of tepid reviews amid a gusher of praise? Please. Grow up. Strangely, Jackson gave an interview to the same paper last weekend in which he claimed to be anything but a diva.
Topics: Movies | 1 Comment »
Review: “The Avengers”
By Kyle | May 4, 2012
The Post last week front-paged my review of “The Avengers.”
Topics: Movies | 2 Comments »