Admin/links, 7/31/2010

First things first. Material published this week:

Charlie St. Cloud review, the first of many for Box Office Magazine. Two additional notes: using Bloc Party to signal 2005 without a date-stamp was a nice touch (I remember that album far too well), and Amanda Crews is unbelievably crushable.

Some stuff about the visual reference points of "Mad Men," the first of what's planned to be weekly bloggage on Tuesdays for Greencine. Something I didn't get into (because it'd be totally counterproductive) is that the show still isn't as good as people think it is. Point of proof number one: the first episode of what's probably the most anticipated season premiere of any show this year begins with the words "Who is Don Draper?" I mean come on Jesus etc.

A book review of Suzanne Rivecca's Death Is Not An Option. If you didn't know I did book reviews, I do and would love to do more. The title story really is great, the rest not so much but always has its moments.

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Re: previous post. There is apparently no way to do this right, as I heard from at least two people who said the tone was so arrogant it was pretty offensive and one guy who said it was way too self-deprecating. What can you do. The specifically offensive bit was about "amateur writers," which was placed in scare-quotes to indicate that the distinction is meaningless; whether or not people get paid for their work increasingly has little to do with the quality of said work (cf. most recently A.O. Scott recommending the work of Dennis Cozzalio, Roger Ebert and Jim Emerson without making professional/amateur distinctions, which is absolutely correct), but the way it came out may have conveyed "I'M A PROFESSIONAL AND YOU'RE NOT." Which was not my intent, and I apologize if it came off that way; I'm grateful for any/all readers. Onwards.

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Stuff watched this week: 8 Louis Feuillade shorts from 1908-13, 2005's The Call of Cthulhu, Assayas' Carlos (review pending), Burr Steers' 17 Again as prep for the aforementioned Charlie St. Cloud, and Michael Ritchie's super-awesome Semi-Tough.

Stuff listened to for the first time this week: Rick Ross' Teflon Don, Suckers' Wild Smile, Stevie Wonder's Talking Book.

Reading: Joseph Heller's Something Happened, which is pretty much killing me.