FOLKS, this Thursday, I'll be interviewing novelist/satirist/National Review apostate Christopher Buckley at Track 16. He may be best known on these shores for his New Yorker humor columns and for writing the novel, Thank You For Smoking, that was adapted into a very good Jason Reitman movie.His new novel involves U.S. dealings with China and is called They Eat Puppies, Don't They?Here are the … [Read more...]
Owen and Kidman as Hemingway and Gellhorn
SOMETIMES, in this business, you have to do things you don't want to do -- deal with unpleasant people, write about a production that bores you to tears. Other times, you get to talk to Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the strong-willed war correspondent who would hate to be remembered at Papa's third wife.Later this month, HBO will broadcast a film, … [Read more...]
Remembering Maurice Sendak
EVEN when someone has hit their 80s, it can be hard to think of them disappearing if they're as ornery and vital as Maurice Sendak. Famously cranky and contrary, he was also a giant of 20th century literature, and it's with great sorrow that The Misread City says goodbye to the writer and artist, who died today in Connecticut.I spoke to Sendak just once, for my story on Spike Jonze's Where The … [Read more...]
The Wreck of the Titanic
THE hype around James Cameron's film, which came out while I was working as a film editor, was so deafening that a lot of us closed our ears when it came to this infamous ship and its demise. I know I did. There didn't seem to be much more to say about the whole mess.But here we are, approaching the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's demise, and there are a ton of new television projects coming, … [Read more...]
Elizabeth Taylor, Accidental Feminist
OVER here at The Misread City, we've been fans of writer M.G. Lord since her book Forever Barbie. An insightful critic of gender, pop culture and the culture of science -- check out her slim, sharp volume Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science, set in and around JPL -- Lord has recently turned her hand to actress Elizabeth Taylor. Lord's cover essay in an issue of The Hollywood Reporter … [Read more...]
Imagining Mars
WHATEVER the faults of John Carter, the new film based on the early work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, we're happy to have the chance to head back to Mars. Given the way NASA funding is going, this may be our only chance.As a species, we've been fascinated with the Red Planet for a long time -- the film is only the latest of a long line. Why does it draw us to it, and how has our thinking about Mars … [Read more...]
The Roots of Stew
Talented as he is, he's become one of Los Angeles's least likely success stories: A hipster cult figure, the toast of Silverlake and Highland Park, who moves to New York and suddenly hits, with a Broadway show and a Spike Lee film. But Stew has always been unpredictable.In today's paper, I spoke to Stew about the figures who've inspired him from outside the familiar pop and rock worlds. He came up … [Read more...]
Nostalgia, The Oscars and "The Artist"
LAST night's Academy Awards confirmed expectations that movies pining for the art of the past (the French past, in some cases) would walk away with the most trophies. The big winner, of course, was The Artist, which snagged best actor for Jean Dujardin, best director for Michel Hazanavicius and best picture.Scorsese's Hugo, set in a Paris train station in the '30s and with a backstory involving … [Read more...]
Dustin Hoffman Falls Into "Luck"
What's this celebrated screen actor doing on television? Dustin Hoffman isn't quite sure either. But he sat down to speak with me recently about what brought him to the David Milch/Michael Mann show Luck, and talked about his career and television in general. HERE is my story.I was struck by how humble and openly neurotic Hoffman was; he spoke about his big break with The Graduate coming after … [Read more...]
The 2012 Oscars and Actors of a Certain Age
THIS week I have a brief piece on SecondAct, the site devoted to people 40 and over. (A demographic I joined four years ago today, and am happy to belong to if it includes Brad Pitt.) I look at some of the actors nominated for this year's Academy Awards -- George Clooney (The Descendants), Meryl Streep (Iron Lady), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) and five others.Not sure there's an unalloyed … [Read more...]