Friday, February 16, 2007

Breach

Spy movies seem to be all the rage right now. Magnolia Darkness has a nice review in this morning's Times of "Breach", a new film about Robert Hansen, a creepy FBI agent who will spend the rest of his life in federal prison for selling secrets to the Russkies. Starring the always excellent Chris Cooper and the squinty-eyed soon-to-be-ex-husband-of-Reese-Witherspoon Ryan Phillippe, "Breach" sounds like it's worth netflixing. (As our regular readers know, we don't get out to the movies very often.) As a bonus, the review has a few snarky Dargisisms. (As a student of bureaucracy, I'll note that most jokes about bureaucracy aren't really very funny, but her comment that the FBI is like Microsoft, but with worse security, is priceless.)

Incidentally, the movie was directed by Billy Ray, whose best known earlier work was the interesting failure, "Shattered Glass." As a pure movie-watching experience, "Shattered Glass" is difficult to watch because the entire movie rests on Hayden Christensen's small, spindly shoulders. (Is there a worse actor who gets regular work in relatively high-profile movies? It's hard to think of one. Nominees?) However, it pops up on cable occasionally and I can't help watching it, mainly because I sort of lived through the experiences described in the movie. I was a sort-of contemporary of Steve's--I'm a year or two older than he is--in DC and met him a few times at parties. I also knew Hanna Rosin (played by Chloe Sevigny in the movie), who was Steve's big defender until end, and some of the other young editors at TNR at the time. I had just left DC for Indiana when the shit hit the fan (so to speak). If you're interested, Dave Plotz (who is married to Hanna) wrote about the surreal experience of watching the movie in Slate in 2003.

Posted by jwb at 10:00 AM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, February 09, 2007

Democracy, whisky, sexy

Aside from a little ocasional cursing, we usually run a pretty clean ship here at jwbblog. However, here's our first ever all-sex post. (I know. It's a little brief. We'll try to do better next time.)

1. Check out this entertaining and funny essay on the cultural phenomenon that is Playboy magazine, now celebrating its golden anniversary. He makes the nice point that, yes, Playboy was pretentious in an easily mockable way--lets invite some babes over for some cocktails and quiet conversation about "Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex"--but such pretension--and the fantasies it gave rise to--seems vastly superior to the .... err ... lifestlye protrayed in Playboy's contemporaries, such as FHM, Maxim, and the like.

2. Breaking news: Sex in space--Not so great!

I'll just comment that it's a bit of a disapointment to find most of one's childhood fantasies--The Playboy lifestyle is mostly fiction? Those sex scenes in Moonraker were phony? No!--obliterated in a few minutes of reading!

Posted by jwb at 6:58 AM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Yeah, I know


Sorry for the lack of blogging of late. My computer finally melted down last week. The problem, it seems, was Steve Jobs' fault, so the "geniuses" at the Apple Store in lovely Burlington, MA, fixed it fairly quickly and (aside from not having a computer for a few days) at no cost to me. And things have been crazy busy this week. There have been a few items hither and yon that I've wanted to blog about recently, but most of them don't seem quite so hither as I think about it now. Here are a few:

1. Congrats to Jen Gadiel who now has a presence in blogistan. Check it out if your interested in the nexus of environmentalism and design.

2. Nelson Polsby, RIP. I only met him once, so I can't say that I really knew him, but he was one of the more distinguished political scientists around and he was also a very funny guy. I'll have to try that "entertaining without shoes" thing, though I imagine his wife did most of the cooking--hot food and bare feet--not so much.

3. I don't read Slate too often these days, but I just came across this astute take on Martin Amis's work (in the guise of a review of his new book). Like the author, I'm a bigger fan of early, Mean Amis--The Information, both brilliant and hilarious, is one of my favorite books--than the more recent neoconnish, moralizing Amis.

4. I watched Miami Vice last night and enjoyed it far more than I expected. Visually, it was quite remarkable and had me wishing I had a bigger TV to soak in all the high-def goodness. However, it had far to many preposterous elements--among them, the silly romance between Sonny (Colin Farrell) and Isabella (Gong Li)--to be considered a good movie. I'll give it a B.

6. The Fiddler was digging through his archives recently and came across the last installment of the late and lamented Bloom County. August 6, 1989 was a sad day, indeed.

6. Buzzy is growing like a weed. We took him in to see the vet on Saturday and he's 32 lbs. (He was 12 lbs. when we got him in early December.) He's starting to look more like a little dog than a puppy, but he's still very cute.

UPDATE: In other Jen Gadiel (nee Wulf) news, her boss, Sylvia Kwan--who we met at Jen's wedding--is on the new season of Survivor, a cultural happening that I have managed to avoid until now. I guess we'll have to watch. Good luck, Sylvia. And if you win, make sure you pay your taxes.

Posted by jwb at 4:30 PM  · 0 Comments