For one long and most likely lonely semester, a good friend of mine became addicted to The Price Is Right. He videotaped episodes, and sometimes skipped law class to catch the Showcase Showdown. Our phone calls were known to swerve off into dissections of certain contests—Plinko, the Mountain Climber—
On Wednesday night, I went to the Les Freres Corbusier production of Hell House, the right-wing horror show so memorably depicted in George Ratliff’s 2000 documentary of the same name. Each witching season, evangelical churches across the country set up an elaborate hell house, a cautionary walk through
Tuesday at 4 a.m., a clatter awakes me from sleep. In the dark of my living room, I find my cat batting around a small lump—a scrunchie, perhaps, or one of those glitter balls I bought at the pet store. I pick up the lump, which is when
So let’s talk, briefly, of the new television season. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Have you ever seen comedians be so serious? Typical Sorkin—the show sure can rock a crane shot—but you’d think these people were drafting the Constitution, not peddling fart jokes. 30 Rock
The Departed is the kind of double-crossing, wiseguy mini-epic for which I will gladly fork over my $15. Plots twisting into gun barrels, brains and blood splashed across the lens—well, it’s enough to turn a girl off murder forever. But not even criminals do this stuff
In my freshman year of college, I was walking past a bar so intentionally dingy its name was Hole in the Wall. A guy stumbled out, grabbed my shoulders, and slurred, “Stewart Copeland is in there!” I had never met a celebrity before, and though I’m not sure any
In college, I fancied myself a movie expert because I owned the Godfather box set and could quote Showgirls. I’d been raised on Entertainment Tonight and HBO reruns, and I didn’t know underground film any better than I knew dressing in big flannel shirts and torn jeans made
As a kid growing up in Texas, I didn’t follow politics or look up to elected officials. I was too busy worshiping Rob Lowe and practicing crotch thrusts for my future as a Solid Gold dancer. That indifference changed when I got to college. For one, Solid Gold was
My favorite documentary—one of my favorite movies, actually—is the British Seven Up! series. Started in 1964, the project interviews a group of English schoolchildren every seven years as they grow into adults, have children, lose their parents, and face their own mortality. YouTube loves this kind of time-
My new obsession is VideoJug, a compendium of how-to videos on everything from “How to Cook a Chicken Curry in 10 Minutes” to “How to Tie a Bowtie”. Each installment is narrated by some British person in a manner so soothing and convincing they could coax me through my
