« OGIC: Max Fischer directing, I presume | Main | TT: Today's wildest posting by an artblogger »
January 24, 2005
OGIC: Anywhere but anywhere but here
That's where I'll be on this day next week (possibly wearing my large-lettered "OGIC" hoodie, à la Ray Nicolette). And I quote:Film critic and historian David Thomson will discuss his new book, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, Monday, January 31 at 7pm at 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th St. in Hyde Park. For more information, call (773) 684-1300 or visit www.semcoop.com.
Film critic and historian David Thomson explores the entire ecology of Hollywood and American movies in his absorbing new history-cum-sociological study-cum-philosophical meditation. Thomson chronicles, analyzes and deconstructs Hollywood, exploring the personalities, the films, the business and the culture of the movies, as well as the place of the movies in American culture. He asks, and tries to answer, questions that would daunt most of his thumbs-up-thumbs-down colleagues: "What have movies done to us?" and "Do movies offer education or rather a lifetime of impossible desire?"
David Thomson is a teacher, critic and author, whose books include The Biographical Dictionary of Film.
Even if I weren't automatically sold on a talk by the author of my favorite movie tome, this press release might well have lured me there. Publicity materials are not, after all, customary lurking grounds for out-and-out snarkery like "thumbs-up-thumbs-down colleagues." That may be more of a little snarl than a big bite, but it's meaner for coming from a bookstore in certain people's backyard.
Posted January 24, 2005 2:04 AM
