Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Fan Rant

I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for "why" or "because." Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot.

The above is the opening to Myra Breckinridge, which instantly sucked me into the world of Gore Vidal. I was a teen bored with the literature at school, as well as the fluff young-adult horror I was reading in my spare time, when I somehow stumbled on his book. Vidal's words were a beacon of light. Sure, there is more to Myra than rabid, powerful, and Amazonian femininity, but that was irrelevant because Vidal's novel was a gateway into the world beyond rural suburban life -- women with power, intelligence mixed with pulp, a crumbling gender barrier, Hollywood, and the vast world beyond cows and K-Mart.

Continue reading Fan Rant: The Big Screen Needs More Gore Vidal

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Lovely article here on the late actor/director's linchpin performance in Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," written by David Schwartz for the Museum of the Moving Image's Moving Image Source website.

From the article: "The power of Kubrick's direction?and Pollack's performance?in the billiard scene comes from the contrast between Cruise's understated (and underrated) performance as Bill, and Pollack's blustery, mannered style. Cruise, the biggest box office star of his time, is brilliant in an uncharacteristic role; his character is passive, naïve, insecure, introverted, and unhinged. Ziegler is the opposite. Everything with him is show and surface; his power is derived from his understanding and command of how the world works. This is a man with no need for introspection.

"Yet if we were to come away believing that Ziegler has all the answers, the scene?and the film?would lose its remarkable ambiguity. For the scene to work?as it does?it must pretend to be explanatory while raising more questions than it answers. What Pollack does so commandingly is create the impression that every hesitation, every smile, every gesture by Ziegler is calculated and artificial, while at the same time making him so charming and convincing that everything also feels genuine. Ziegler seems to be lying and telling the truth at the same time, and Kubrick has no interest in resolving this tension."

"Eyes Wide Shut" has always had its quixotic defenders, but Schwartz is the first writer to make me want to actually see the film again.

This just in from The Birmingham Star:

Mathura, June 17 : Ashish Sharma of Uttar Pradesh's Mathura city attempted an unusual feat to break a world record of watching films non-stop for the longest time.

During his marathon movie-watching attempt, Ashish watched 48 Bollywood films for over 120 hours and ended his feat on Monday here. He started at 11:08 a.m (IST) on June 11 and ended up at 8:12 p.m. (IST) on Monday (June 16).

Sharma surpassed the previous record of 117 hours and four minutes set by Claudia Wavra of Germany.

Ravi Shankar Godara, a Guinness Record holder, confirmed Sharma making the record.

Godara set the Guinness Record on May 20, 2007 for memorizing most birthdays in two minutes and got the eligibility of participating in any Guinness World Record event attempt and observe it.

"The record was first made by Claudia Wavra from Germany for 117 hours and four minutes and Ashish was supposed to break it. He started on June 11,2008 and followed the stated rules and regulations of the Guinness Book of World Records as provided to me," said Ravi Shankar Godara.

Ravi Shankar Godara also said that the longest movies watching marathon record breaker was duly checked by a doctor after every four hours.

The conditions also stipulated that the duration of each movie should not be less than 90 minutes and the participant can have rest for 10 minutes after each film.

Ashish, however, said that his attempt to enter the Guinness World Records was to bring the name of his native place Mathura into record books.

"I saw a book of the Guinness Book of World Records in a library in Nehru Place market of New Delhi. After studying it I felt there was no mention of Mathura in such a book of records. So, I decided to do something that will place Mathura in the record book," he said.

Ashish, however, will be issued the world record title one month later after scrutiny of his data, statements of witnesses, CDs and DVDs.