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Anthony Wilson is killing me softly with his words. from

In the summer of 2002, Mexico became a democracy, again. Via a peaceful transfer of power, the PRI lost control over the executive branch for the first time in 70 years. No such transition can take place without a significant cultural shift: the kind represented by the 2000 film La Ley de Herodes. Though quite dark [...]

a few weeks ago i wondered if the Olympics would be the environmentalist blockbuster of the summer. a blockbuster? without a doubt. environmentalist? sorta. last Friday on Korean television i caught sight of not just fake trees around the Olympic stadium but even faked high-rises.* the buildings were real enough but the authorities had set [...]

very rarely will i have the kind of nightmare i just had now. a prolonged, disinterested narrative set in a post-apocalyptic city where zombies (they sleep during the day) and vigilantes (there is no law) set each scene in motion. all dreams are a response to the gaps that form during the waking hours. yesterday, [...]

The 1949 Mexican noir film Aventurera is tightly crafted, progressive, sensational, at times experimental and completely modern. Related: ¿A Quién Le Importa? by Alaska y Dinarama.

While on a garden tour it occurred to me that gardens have four components: sight, smell, temperature and time. Time, because as living organisms, they look, smell and affect the air differently depending on their life cycle. weeks later: and there’s a fifth element, perhaps. they either contribute or take away from their ecosystem. the [...]

Nick Dewar on petroleum identity politics Christoph Niemann on upside down loans

SpaceCollective

Jen Stark Noriko Ambe Charles Clary

Superbad is the most vulgar movie I’ve seen in a while. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It proudly belongs to a genre that intends to cross the line (the hair gel in Something About Mary, the baked goods in American Pie). But apart from some great acting, I don’t understand what all the [...]

Thanks to a commercial on TV, Ana and I have been playing this song all week long. It’s very well done.

Seeing is believing. I am watching a movie on hulu with limited commercial interruptions. It really works. Now, if only they added an EQ to boost the audio…

Gone Baby Gone is a chilling exploration of moral reasoning, as sober as the law and as tender as prayer. It poses a seemingly simple question: is it ever just to take the law into one’s own hands? (No.) But in answering the question it pokes holes in every argument tendered, especially the notion that [...]

Incisive letter from a reader of Talking Points Memo.

Concession stand sales spike with screenings of Pineapple Express.

There are 1,321,851,888 Chinese and one Premier. There are 301,139,947 Americans and one President. The Chinese political system has to endure over four times the stress of the American.

On the heels of the brilliant WALL•E, another environmentalist blockbuster: the Olympics. I suppose there’s also a one-percent possibility that the international embarrassment will be a Chernobyl-type stimulus toward truly radical environmental action in China and around the world. But maybe that’s fooling myself too.

Jane Mayer in the The New York Review of Books: …at almost every turn along the way, the Bush administration was warned that whatever the short-term benefits of its extralegal approach to fighting terrorism, it would have tragically destructive long-term consequences both for the rule of law and Americas interests in the world. These warnings [...]

New York Magazine via Josh Marshall: The alternative, of course, is to get on offense, to batter McCain for his gaffes and incoherence, hammer him for his flip-flops, highlight how his maverick status is a thing of the past, and turn him into a combination of Bush and Grandpa Simpson. God knows there are those [...]