Friday, February 11, 2011

Pop Culture Round-Up: January 29 - February 11, 2011

Tyranny of the Alphabet - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine
You might be like, "Huh?" but, as a Y, let me tell you that I read this entire thing nodding and going, "This is SO TRUE." Also very disappointing for five year-old me to learn that you never get over it even if you change your name since as I child I truly thought that marrying someone whose name came higher up (look, even that!) in the alphabet was my ticket to happiness. 

A Golden Age of Foreign Films, Mostly Unseen - NYTimes.com
Aw, I see them! Also, Carlos is really long. Less so when you realize that it was originally a two-parter, but still.

Narcissus Regards a Book - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Hmm, I don't actually remember why I wanted to read this, so it will be surprise to all of us.

The Tyee – Frugging Lycanthropes! - The Sadies make the great Canadian music video.
How could dancing werewolves not be a good thing?

Separating Fact From Film - WSJ.com
It's time for Black Swan backlash, no?

CBC News - Books - Canada Reads names 2011 winner
It is sadly not there any longer, but this article was originally published with the subhead (and I am not making this up): SPOILER ALERT: Prize winner revealed below. I'm spoiler-averse, but are things so off-kilter that articles clearly announcing winners need spoiler alerts? WARNING: This article contains news!

‘Black Swan’ Deconstructed, Film’s Many Faces - NYTimes.com
And there it is. Odd, because even as I was watching it I thought an apropos subtitle would be "Nina's failure to orgasm," but I didn't make the link, "And also sexism."

FFWD - Calgary Screen - Film Features - Romantic movies for the fellas
Or the Aprils. 

FFWD - Calgary Screen - Film Features - Rom-com romp
I haven't seen four out of five, so let's talk about numero cinq. Lars and the Real Girl should totally make you barf. It's cute enough while you are watching it but not cute enough to stop you from thinking that what Lars is doing isn't radical therapy. His "solution" to ending his surrogate relationship -- so that he can have a real one -- is to kill his girlfriend. That's not going to help him having happy, functioning relationships in the future. His prospective human girlfriend should run for the hills.

'Twilight' Writer Melissa Rosenberg Takes Over Summit's 'Highlander' Script (Exclusive) - Heat Vision
As my best friend put it when she sent this link to me, "Best. News. Ever." But how can anyone improve on the Kurgan

1968-75: How 'X-Rated' Became Synonymous With 'Porn' - James Fallows - Culture - The Atlantic
X-rated is so overrated.