Archives for October 2009

I just wrote a snarky little listicle for Vice:

To be released by Criterion is the benchmark of excellence. Their 25-year-old catalog includes indispensable work from masters including Cocteau, Renoir, Maysles, Kubrick, Cronenberg, Godard, Kurosawa, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Sturges, and, of course, Fellini.
It’s an impressive list of talent, which is why you can imagine my surprise when I arrived at the director responsible for film #40 in their catalog. Michael Bay. That’s right, Michael Bay, the dung beetle of cinematic vapidity, best known for his unparalleled skill at rolling oversized balls of shit into our nation’s cineplexes. If you’re not familiar with his work–is this possible?–Bay is responsible for Bad Boys I & II, Pearl Harbor, and Transformers, not to mention the career of Megan Fox. (She hates him too). Currently, Bay is remaking The Birds, which I’m assuming will be re-imagined to include a bikini-clad Maxim covergirl who blows away blood-sucking zombie pigeons with a grenade launcher.

Check out the list here.

I’ve got a new piece over at Huffington Post in response to the Pope’s latest ungodliness. Here’s a taste:

Perhaps responding to criticism that he’s out of step with the times, Benedict extended his invitation to the rap community using language that is most commonly associated with hip hop lyrics.
“Rappers can be assured that I won’t be hatin’ if they rhyme about ho’s and queers. I won’t be getting up on their dick, no homo,” said Benedict.

Read it all.

I’m in a great new anthology called Cassette from My Ex that’s slotted for release October 27th. Here’s the scoop:

Cassette from My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves shares sixty hilarious, nostalgic and heartbreaking stories stories all about crushes and mixtapes. CFME compiles stories from some amazing writers and musicians: author Rick Moody, The Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, This American LIfe’s Starlee Kine, The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman, Blender Magazine’s Joe Levy, Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd, Mortified’s David Nadelberg—even a new story from the godfather of the genre, Rob Sheffied. We put a ton of love into the design, too, with 224 full-color pages designed by noted cassetteophile Lissi Erwin, with cover illustrations by the excellent Hope Gangloff.

There will be a release party at Housing Works in NY on the 28th, so come on out if you can. You can pre-order here.