“Blue Car”

Paleo Retiree writes:

The Question Lady and I were in giggly, semi-camp heaven watching this solemn exercise in literary-workshop-style hypersensitivity.

Agnes Bruckner stars as a midwestern girl from a sad, broken family who has a knack for poetry; Margaret Colin is the girl’s overwhelmed, trying-not-to-be-bitter, snappish mom; David Strathairn is the handsome high-school English teacher whose interest in his student’s talents may be a little too personal.

The actors are all good, and despite my irreverence I’m also happy to acknowledge that the film is classily done. (It was directed by Karen Moncrieff.) It’s what it is that made me hoot. Divorce; quiet miseries; vague yearnings; misplaced love; “family” as an “issue”; clever-but-not-Hollywood dialogue; loads of indirection; the suburbs portrayed as an inane version of paradise; metaphors-and-coincidences standing in for story structure; the cluelessness of adults whose lives haven’t lived up to their hopes … Every cliche of this inevitably slim, wispy, overbaked, narcissistically-compassionate, never-delicate-enough, estrogen-befogged, microtrauma-lovin’ genre is dotingly dwelt-on and artfully-presented, as though the package had both real literary significance and immense sociological resonance.

Tasteful-indiepic bliss.

Related

• Don’t miss Blowhard, Esq.’s definitive review of tasteful-indiepic classic “Margot at the Wedding.”

Linkage

Paleo Retiree writes:

• The Soviet erotic alphabet.
• Great to see that the smart and cantankerous Will S. is blogging again.
• More on Bitcoin. The alternative-currency meme has really become something.
• Joys of multiculturalism, cont. And more.
• The things some people do to get themselves off …
• Smart pooch.
• Now even the New York Times is comparing Obama to Nixon.
• Has Yahoo ruined Flickr?
• How do women’s hormonal cycles affect their political views?
• Netflix Instant Recommendation Du Jour: “Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.” Proof that scrappily likable exploitation filmmaking isn’t entirely a thing of the past, this shot-in-two-weeks 2010 cheapo action spectacle revels in so-bad-it’s-good effects, acting and storytelling, and it does so without falling into the trap of being excessively knowing or cool. It’s got a lot of the frantic, damn-the-torpedoes, we’re-going-to-tell-our-story-despite-everything sweetness of early Roger Corman movies. FWIW, my own imagination and giddiness kicked in about twenty times more watching this shitty movie than it does when I watch the usual slick, huge-budgeted, big-studio action fantasy. Hmm, maybe that means that “Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus” is a non-shitty movie …

Who Needs Mardi Gras?

Fenster writes:

We Americans think we are pretty cool with our wild weekend events like the upcoming Urban Beach Weekend in Miami Beach.  The city seems to have battened down the hatches for that.  It is bound to be a serious fest.

But the Germans are no slouches in the Department of Weekend Celebrations.  The annual Goth Festival just wrapped up in Liepzig.  As Der Spiegel writes, no one does Goth quite like the Germans.

Cracks in the Swedish Social Model

epiminondas writes:

Race riots in Sweden?  It would appear that the vaunted socialism of every leftist’s favorite socialist state is breaking down along racial lines.  How many remember the stern rebukes of Swedish commentators on America’s racial issues and later on those of the British?  I can still hear the ringing tones of Gunnar Myrdahl as he lectures his inferiors and scornfully contrasts America and its class system with that of peaceful Sweden.  Too bad the SOB didn’t live to see what his dimwitted buddies have done to Sweden.  I’m not hearing too much tut-tutting from them these days.

Linkage

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

• So Yahoo! bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Like many Tumblr users, my main hope is that Yahoo! won’t ruin the service, i.e. let us keep all of our filthy and disgusting porn. But really, Yahoo! has no reason for being at this point, right? If my parents and those like them ever learn how to change their home page, Yahoo!’s traffic will instantly vanish.
• A comprehensive Dark Enlightenment reading list.
• The 50 Greatest Matte Paintings of All Time. (H/T Matt Zoller Seitz)
• La Paglia on how gender theorists are ruining the study of BDSM.
• I fully expect that, sometime in the not-too-distant future (like, next week), I’ll wake up and everything around me will be Star Wars-modded.
• It’s true.
• 5 reasons being a lawyer sucks and, yes, this guy nails it. I plan on writing more about this, specifically the failure of law school to actually prepare you to be a lawyer, in a later post. (H/T Paleo Retiree)

De De Mollner’s Sunset Strip (With a Few Detours Along the Way)

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

After reading Paleo Retiree’s ultra-groovy interview with De De Mollner about her days as a go-go dancer in 60s L.A., I couldn’t help but wonder about some of the Sunset Strip locations she mentioned. A few of the places I was familiar with, but many names were new to me. Do these places still exist? What’s there now? Camera in hand, I went out one Sunday to see for myself.

The Downton Abbey Syndrome…In a Bad Sense

epiminondas writes:

A new aristocracy is busy cementing its agenda into place.  At the expense of free men and free markets.