Party Like It's 1999

In honor of PopMatter's 10-year anniversary, we're taking a look back at the (many, terrific) films of 1999. Since I've lived so close to the actual town of Sleepy Hollow, I chose Tim Burton's film to write up.

Decade-Dense: The 60 Most Memorable Films of 1999: Sleepy Hollow

"Like their first collaboration, 1990’s brilliant Edward Scissorhands—and like fellow 1999 honoree American Beauty—Sleepy Hollow is an examination and condemnation of the suburbs. Poking beneath the seams of the idyllic countryside (which, to be fair, never looks quite that idyllic through Burton’s lens, as there’s a permanent gloom and fog that’s a stark contrast to Scissorhands' bright palette), he finds horrors far worse than the street thugs of the city: a ruling cabal of unstoppable men (whom Burton calls the “Dutch Masters"), materialistic and status-seeking women, and, only slightly less scary, a reanimated, decapitated Hessian who preys on the town’s residents."

January Issue


Our Frugal Guide certainly couldn't have been better-timed, wouldn't you say?

The Backyard Backlot

The Jacob Burns Film Center, the go-to spot for film nerds in the county, gets even better by opening up a new Media Arts Lab for film education: "The building itself, situated on the corner of Manville Road and Grant Street, just down the street from the Jacob Burns Film Center, is special enough to warrant its own making-of documentary. The whole thing is LEED-certified, meaning it’s held to the greenest of standards. The offices are made of recycled materials, work off of natural light, are heated and cooled by geothermal energy, and have solar panels up on the roof—as well as a roof-deck perfectly suited for a swank film premiere party."

Oxen Free

How this year's designation as The Year of the Ox bodes for 2009: "Craig Haney, livestock manager of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, praises the animals for their industriousness. 'They literally put their shoulders into their work,' he says. 'If you think about our current financial crisis, we’re going to be seeing a lot of that this year.'"

Culture, Etc.

Edwin McCain, a New York animation exhibition, and more.

Home Theater

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Pineapple Express, Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Assigned:

Give Her the Slip

First-person essay: "When moving from LA to Westchester, climate isn’t the only reason for a change in wardrobe, says DeLauné Michel, author and founder of Spoken Interludes, a literary salon."


Fall Arts!


As promised, the September issue came in today with my big, fat Fall Arts Preview eating up some of the feature well (15 pages, plus more after the jump). This is my favorite kind of package: the kind where I get to tell people what to do with their free time, like see Andrew Bird or Burn After Reading.

The Fall Arts Preview package has many components, including:

Fall Events

Everything from the county-wide clay arts exhibitions to Dar Williams' concert: "This fall, almost every local art institution is going to have one thing on its mind: clay. Sure, you played with it when you were a kid and giggle when you think of the pot-throwing scene from Ghost (all that wasted clay!) but when was the last time you really gave clay any thought as a medium?"

Fall Movies

From Burn After Reading to Benjamin Button: "We’ve seen lots of disasters in films: earthquakes, volcanoes, diseases, The Happening. But what about an epidemic of blindness? Fernando Meirelles’ film, based on the 1995 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning José Saramago, imagines just that, with Julianne Moore starring as the one woman in town with immunity. Blindness was chosen to open this year’s Cannes Film Festival—but left with mixed reception (September 26)."

Fall TV

What's coming up on the networks: "You know that old sitcom formula in which two seemingly incompatible personalities are forced to live together? My Own Worst Enemy ups the ante by having those two personalities share a body. Taking a page from Fight Club’s book, one man is torn between his two identities: one is a suburban father, the other an operative trained to kill (10:00, NBC)."

...and Fall Books, which I didn't write but I assigned. And that's all in addition to my normal arts-related pages and front-of-book matter:

Mysterious Master

A short item about a church that found a master painting hiding in plain sight: “'When he started to work on the painting, parts that looked like they should be gold started to turn into silver,' Monsignor Corrigan says. 'That made me very nervous. I said a prayer. But when I saw it restored, it was totally spectacular.'"

Home Theater

September DVDs, including The Godfather, The Great Pumpkin, and The Fall: "Even though Halloween isn’t for another month, we all have days—no matter what time of year it is—when we can relate to poor little Linus, waiting for the Great Pumpkin that may never arrive."

Arts & Entertainment

Paula Cole, Mavis Staples, and more.

In addition to the Fall Arts Preview, this month was our "Sex Issue." Though I didn't write anything for it, I did assign this piece about the 12 things a sex writer has learned throughout her career and this piece about where to find love in the county.

PopMatters and Persepolis


I've been so busy, I forgot to post my review of the Persepolis DVD.

Persepolis

"Marjane Satrapi notes that if she had chosen to use real actors, the film would immediately be pigeonholed as an 'ethnic' film. Animation has an abstract quality, she says, that keeps it from being shrugged off as something too exotic. Choosing to animate the film allows the characters to become more human than if she had used human actors."

June Issue


Our first summer issue: summer vacations, summer books, and more.

Summer Reading

A round-up of the buzz books for summer, including new works by David Guterson and Alan Furst.

Take a Few Days Off

Our huge feature on weekend getaways includes my contribution about The Villa at Saugerties in the Catskills: "Say goodbye to the chintz, the brocade, and the stuffy Victorian furniture. Just because you want to get away for the weekend doesn’t mean you want to leave your sense of style behind with the babysitter." (About three-quarters of the way down the page.)

Grilling the Experts

Grill tips from the pros: "McGrath says that natural wood chips are the best source of fuel, but if you’re using charcoal, 'you want it to be white-hot, not red-hot. That’s the best way to grill something.'" (Second item down)

The Director's Cut

An article about Bruce David Klein, director of Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise: "Klein, Meat Loaf says, 'is a pesky little thing and he manages to wiggle and squeeze himself into places that I didn’t necessarily like all of the time.'" (The link to this story is being repaired.)

Culture, Etc.

A new art exhibition about space exploration, Chuck Mangione, and more.

May Issue


May means the start of the summer season--and that means big summer movies. Hence, one of my favorite assignments of the year:

Summer Film Preview

A round-up of the must-see films of the summer: "Apparently, even after you find the Holy Grail, there’s still more whip-cracking adventuring to do. An older, crankier Indy takes young Mutt Williams (Transformers’ Shia LeBeouf) along for the ride this time."

Also in this issue:

Our Parents' Divorces

A lifestyle piece about what happens to people after their parents get divorced: "'When their parents divorce, many children go through an emotional roller coaster,' says Peter Salem, executive director of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. 'There is a fundamental change in the child’s world. There could be a change of residence, or the family income isn’t what it once was because it has to support two homes. The bedrock of their lives—the family unit—is being dismantled. The question turns into whether or not there will be emotional damage to the children and, if so, what the extent of it will be.'”

From CNN to ASU

A follow-up article with CNN's Aaron Brown: "In June 2005, we profiled Aaron Brown, then an anchor for CNN’s NewsNight and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Scarsdale</st1:place></st1:city> resident. Today, almost all of what we wrote has changed. He’s no longer with the cable net, having been replaced after four years by a certain silver-haired anchor whose name rhymes with Schmanderson Schmooper." (It's the sixth item down.)

UPDATE: This article was picked up for an item in Page Six. Read it here.

Ask the Expert

A tiny item about generic vs. name-brand pills: "According to the FDA, a store-brand or generic drug must be the same as the original in terms of dosage, strength, performance, use, quality, and safety. However, the look of the brand-name drug is trademarked, so the store-brand version uses the inactive ingredients to change the size, shape, color, or taste, and those ingredients may give you a different reaction." (It's the fourth item down.)

Culture, Etc.

Joan Osborne, Jacques Goudstikker, art galas, and more.

PopMatters Day


Two of my PopMatters reviews went up on the same day. I love it when that happens.

quarterlife

Note: the lack of a capital "q" is the show's stupid stylistic decision, not mine. My review isn't much nicer: "This is the not-quite-true story of six friends picked to live in a house and have their lives taped, as one pensive video-blogger finds out what happens when people stop being polite and start being 'real'...A show where friends sleep around on each other, only to have truths revealed about their lives through a blog? It’s basically Gossip Girl, only without the awareness that it’s a total fantasy."

Right at Your Door

The movie was mixed, but it did make me jump up and buy a disaster-preparedness kit online: "Gorak manages to wring the maximum amount of fright out of this situation not by how large the disaster looms, but how small he makes it."

Also, PopMatters has now done this neat thing where you can search reviews by author, so you can see everything else I've written for them, too.

Listmania!

One of the best things about being an entertainment writer is getting to influence the rankings in collaborative year-end lists. (I don't think The Host would've made it on the list below if it weren't for me.) PopMatters just published its ranking of the 30 best films of 2007, and I got to weigh in on a few of them.

A Gallery of Good Works: The Best Films of 2007

I contributed three blurbs to the countdown:

No. 29 (save the best for second-to-last), for The Host: "Most foreign monster movies come with at least some degree of kitsch built in, and with that comes a distance that keeps audiences from ever being fully involved in the story. With The Host, South Korean director Joon-ho Bong annihilates that boundary."

No. 21, for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: "Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck both give quiet, obsessive, breathtaking performances: Pitt as the charismatic-but-paranoid celebrity outlaw, and Affleck as his profound wannabe."

No. 3, for Ratatouille: "That one scene is enough to remind you that, for all of their snazzy rat’s-eye-view tracking shots, artistic renderings that make Paris look like the confection it is, and lovable characters with populist-not-preachy messages—none of which is a small feat to pull off—the true magic of Pixar is the ability to instantaneously leave all that behind for one moment so emotionally involving it can stop your heart for a second."

Coming Soon: PopMatters' list of the best TV of 2007!

Catching Up

I only just started compiling my clips, but I've been a professional writer since 2003. If you'd like to see anything else, I certainly can provide you with more. Highlights include "No More Empty Nest," about the social and economic reasons why young adults choose to live with their parents longer (no link available but I have the PDF), and "Cosmetics 101," about my personal foray into the world of beauty.