Last August, Deb and I had the opportunity to attend a special screening of director Tom DiCillo's Delirious. I wrote about the film the next day (which, if you check out the comments, generated a response from DiCillo himself). In subsequent weeks, due to lousy distribution (think Katrina-relief-effort lousy) and despite a rave review from Roger ( Read more... )

This morning, in The New York Sun, there's an article about how Manhattan's Anthology Film Archives (according to its website, "the first museum devoted to film as an art form") is reviving the early movies of Albert Brooks; specifically, his first two features, the wonderful and exquisite Real Life and Modern Love (the former, made in 1979, an ( Read more... )

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I don't think it's funny no more.

-NICK LOWE,
"Crackin' Up"

In his latest blog post, director Tom DiCillo reports this disheartening news about his new film, which opened last week: " Delirious has just been pulled from its two original screens in NY and and moved to a different single theater. The same thing has ( Read more... )

Yesterday, Tom DiCillo kindly reviewed my review of his terrific new film Delirious. Check out "gracias" in the Comments section.

In doing so, he inadvertently addressed a question I raise again and again in my book: beyond providing a guide for the consumer, does criticism in any way serve the artist?

DiCillo's response echoes what Jackson ( Read more... )

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There have been several things I've wanted to blog about these last few weeks, but, because I've been happily occupied with this and that, the opportunity just hasn't presented itself. So tonight, in one fell swoop, here's what's been on my mind:


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I learned about Shopsin's last year when I visited Evergreen Video to interview owner Steve Feltes for my book about Paul Nelson. Deciding we'd eat while we talked, we walked across the street to Shopsin's, at 54 Carmine Street in the West Village, where we were presented with a menu the length of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novella (there are ( Read more... )