Christoph Waltz spoke to Terry Gross on Fresh Air on December 19, 2012, to talk about Tarantino’s new movie, Django Unchained–which is the second of his films for Waltz. They talk about a lot of things, including Django, and how Tarantino finally found him, an actor who is fluent in English, French, and German, but also had [...]
Dreary days like today put me instantly in the mood to watch the 1980 Stanley Kubrick interpretation of The Shining. In the first place, there is something endlessly fascinating about a wrier’s descent into madness, and not just because I can sit and say, “well, at least I’m not as crazy as that guy.” (I [...]
About a month ago my Dad and I sat down over a couple days, with the tape recorder, and he told me a few stories about his days as a detective in the Michigan State Police. We spent most of that time discussing one particular murder case, that he always thought would make a great [...]
Another gem from Girls. Hannah has basically been fired from her unpaid internship because the won’t pay her and her parents have stopped supporting her. So she is discussing her situation with some friends. Hannah: So I calculated, and I can last in New York for three and a half more days. Maybe seven if I don’t [...]
The pilot episode of Girls speaks volumes about the lives of twenty-somethings who just haven’t quite got everything in order just yet, and please give us some time, thank you very much. Case in point, the scene in the office of Hannah’s (Lena Dunham’s) unpaid internship at a publishing company, where she must ask for payment [...]
I am absolutely fascinated by the relationship people have with things. I am fascinated by the meaning and value humans add to otherwise meaningless objects. I’ve written about it before: Why do we keep what we do, discard what we decide we do not want? How do we use things to celebrate and make meaning in holidays? And [...]
It is an oft-approached topic in college history classes: American exceptionalism. Especially when you get to the graduate level, you only discuss it more. Americans, throughout history, have touted themselves, their brand of government and social structure, their notions of upward mobility, and their presence in other nations as products of the fated “city on a [...]