dvd of the week You could call Swiss Army Man a cross between Weekend at Bernie’s and Castaway. It’s as bizarre and puerile as Bernie’s and aspires to Castaway’s depth; Swiss Army Man uses the insanity of its premise to create a powerfully symbolic fever dream about the power of friendship to heal the wounds…
As we were walking into Swiss Army Man, I discovered that my friend Adam, who I’d brought to the movie, didn’t know anything about what we were about to see. I giggled, because I knew that the movie was about a guy stranded on a deserted island who befriends a farting corpse. Adam was going…
Before I get into my review of Horns, I want to complain about a small part of the film that doesn’t have much of an effect on either the film’s plot or ultimately its quality. Two of the characters in the film, both childhood friends of the film’s hero Ig Parrish (Daniel Radcliffe), are secretly…
Offering a lengthy and heartfelt apology, the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Center (MBC), a news and cultural program broadcasting to some 150 million people in the Arabic-speaking world, was forced to pull a story then issue an apology after viewers complained about a report that identified actor Daniel Radcliffe as gay and Cameron Diaz as bisexual,…
dvd of the week John Krokidas and Austin Bunn’s wonderful film about the beginnings of the Beats, the phrase “kill your darling” is spoken by an English professor with the usual purpose – edit down your extravagant writing – but it also means a great deal more. One of the first scenes in the film…
A large number of writers have been credited with the phrase “kill all your darlings.” I had always thought it was Dorothy Parker, and the Internet claims it is William Faulkner or Stephen King. A recent Slate article places its origin as a writing guide from 1913. Whoever said it first, it’s been a key…
