Archive for 'The Offical Record' Category
MOVIE REVIEW: BIG FISH (2003) * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
16 January 2004Tim Burton is probably my favorite living director, but his latest movie, about a man who tells hard-to-believe “fish stories,” is not one of his best. Big Fish tries to walk a line that keeps it both outlandishly creative and also straightforwardly charming. But it ends up missing both targets. And while it is often […]
ATTACKING DEAN.
12 January 2004Why are all the Democratic presidential candidates piling on Howard Dean? Does, say, Joe Lieberman think that if he can erode Dean’s support a little bit, then all those people will vote for Lieberman instead? Does Al Sharpton think that? I just don’t get that strategy at all.
RAPE ROOMS?
12 January 2004Bush keeps going on about how the Iraqi military had “rape rooms.” What’s a rape room? Don’t get me wrong– I am totally against rape, okay? And I don’t mean to be in any way dismissive or disrespectful toward anybody who’s been raped, whether or not that happened in a rape room. But I just […]
LAST WEEKEND.
12 January 2004On Thursday, I went to Beauty Bar with Steve K. and Heidi H. and Evan. Then Steve and I had a late dinner at Coffee Bar in Union Square. On Friday, I had Spanish food with Manny F. and Mai X., and then we all saw The Revolution Will Not be Televised. On Saturday, I […]
I’M BACK.
12 January 2004I got back from Florida last week, where I grew up. I had a great time with my family and my old friends who still live there, or who have moved around the country, and came back to visit for the holidays, too. We threw a huge New Year’s party, and played a lot of […]
NYC RESTAURANT REVIEW: LA MELA * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 January 2004La Mela is in Little Italy on 167 Mulberry Street, between Broome and Grand. The food, which is served family style on huge platters for the table to share, were very good, even by the high standards to which I hold Little Italy. The atmosphere on Saturday Night was festive, without being intrusive, and I […]
MOVIE REVIEW: THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 January 2004This pro-Hugo Chavez documentary would have been a very boring and one-sided look at the leader of Venezuela, except that there was a coup while the filmmakers were making the film, which turned the documentary into something absolutely extraordinary. While it is clear that the filmmakers are unabashed in their pro-Chavez bias, it is equally […]
MOVIE REVIEW: THE HAUNTED MANSION (2003) * 1/2 (1 and a half stars out of 4).
12 January 2004This mindless Eddie Murphy comedy, passes the time well enough, but there’s not much to it. It gives the backstory to the wonderful Disney ride of the same name. But the two-dimensional characters and thin story make for a very unmemorable movie.
WELL, UH, DON’T PANIC, I GUESS?
5 January 2004DEBKAfile (which I never heard of before) reports that the Italian newspaper Il Giornale (which I never heard of before) reports that an Internet Web site that DEBKA doesn’t even say the name of, and which is said to be associated with al Qaeda, says that al Qaeda threatens to detonate a nuclear device in […]
LAST WEEKEND.
21 December 2003(Not this weekend that ends today, but the last one.) On Thursday, I had tea with Joclyn G. and later went out for drinks with Steve K. and Heidi, and a couple of their friends. I got to see Steve’s brand new apartment in Soho. It’s right on Canal Street, but it’s on the Soho […]
FOUND IN TRANSLATION.
12 December 2003Here is an excerpt from the article “UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR” that appeared here, in “The Official Record” more than a year ago, on November 12, 2002: We have the following four things already: 1) Voice recognition software that converts speech to text. 2) Translation software that translates from English to almost any language or vice-versa. 3) […]
LAST WEEKEND.
12 December 2003On Thursday, I went to the Simon and Garfunkel concert at Madison Square Garden. With Manny F. It was really great, and really special, I thought. I’ve always been a really big S&G; fan, and I’d really thoght that I would never get the chance to see them perform together. On Friday, Manny F. and […]
MOVIE REVIEW: THE COOLER (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 December 2003I had a little trouble accepting the premise of this independent film, that the William H. Macy character is incredibly unlucky, and has the power to infect others with his bad luck by being around them, so he is given a job at a Las Vegas casino making sure that high rollers don’t win. But […]
MOVIE REVIEW: BAD SANTA (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 December 2003This anti-Christmas black comedy is very funny, and definitely worth seeing. It is outrageous and over the top, yet somehow real and believable. My only complaint is that by the end, the it turns into a boring, old feel-good Christmas movie, with no irony in the happy ending.
LAST WEEKEND.
1 December 2003This was a busy weekend. Thursday morning, I had a bunch of friends over to watch the Macy’s parade from my balcony, which overlooks Broadway. Then, I went to Helen Z.‘s parents’ house for a delicious Greek Thanksgiving dinner with her cousins Joe F. and Manny F., Joe’s wonderful wife Carol H., and Manny’s charming […]
THEATER REVIEW: TABOO * * * (3 stars out of 4).
1 December 2003It seems to me that this show, the new Boy George musical produced by Rosie O’Donnell has been very unfairly maligned in the press for reasons that have nothing to do with the show itself. In fact, the show is a lot of fun and very engaging with a very good score.
AIN’T IT GRAND?
1 December 2003I just completed a two week term as a New York Grand Juror. It was full time every day, and we heard dozens of cases. Unlike a trial jury that decides whether a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we merely decided whether each suspect was probably guilty or not, and therefore should be […]
LAST WEEKEND.
25 November 2003Friday, I went out with Jessica D. and Christopher B. for a drink and some Mexican food on the Lower East Side. It was fun until somebody drank too much. Saturday, I had Sushi with Debbie W. We walked around the city and looked at some holiday decorations. Then we watched some TV. I made […]
LAST WEEKEND.
18 November 2003Thursday, I saw Automatic Vaudeville at the Ars Nova Theater with Joclyn G. Friday, I had dinner at Supper and saw Martin and Orloff with Manny F. and May (sp?). Saturday, I had brunch in Brooklyn with Joclyn G. and went to the New York Transit Museum. Then we came back to Manhattan and had […]
THIS ROCKS.
14 November 2003Like many of you, I heard the hit song “So Damn Lucky” by the Dave Matthews Band for the first time on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live. It’s the first song I’ve really liked in at least six months, and it completely blew me away. The melody is haunting and sweet, but the lyrics are […]
TWO OF A KIND.
13 November 2003I read this article in the New York times yesterday, which stated that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld met with “his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Van Tra.” And my first thought was, Do I have a Vietnamese counterpart?
BUILD A BETTER BLOG.
11 November 2003I use Blogger and I use enetation.co.uk for my commenting. When I get my email notification of a comment, it tells me the item number for the article that the comment is for, but that was not very helpful in finding the article, especially if it was very old. But I’ve started including the full […]
THE TWO MILLION DOLLAR MEN.
8 November 2003Everybody is making such a fuss over the new report of 126,000 new jobs created in the last quarter. They should, but not for the reason they have been. When Bush proposed his 250 billion dollar tax cut for the wealthy, he promised it would create one million jobs. In fact, even with these new […]
MOVIE REVIEW: THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
8 November 2003The third Matrix movie is better than the second one. Of course, like almost every movie ever made, it’s not as good as the original Matrix movie. As action movies go, it’s better than most. It did feel a little long, especially at the beginning. I find that almost every movie, except the truly great […]
THEATER REVIEW: THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (2001) * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
8 November 2003I enjoyed this show and it really reminded me of the Broadway shows I saw as a kid, before the dark, haunting tragedy of Les Miserables transformed everybody’s expectations about what a musical was supposed to be, more than fifteen years ago, in 1987. Thoroughly Modern Millie was both refreshingly and disappointingly straightforward, lacking any […]