I thought Christopher Trout did such a nice job with this video in which he encounters an animated RealDoll. Usually, stories of this sort, especially when told by men, are very wink-wink, nudge-nudge, ham-ham. But this is serious, smart, and insightful. Great stuff. Hope to see more explorations of how science and technology are changing mating, dating, and relating like this.
I wrote a review of a new HBO documentary called "Meth Storm." Watching this movie is no fun, but that doesn't mean it isn't good. In Arkansas, ice is everywhere.
"Perhaps the wisest and most agonizing choice made by producer/director team Brent and Craig Renaud, Peabody Award-winning brothers whose credits include 'Dope Sick Love' and 'Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later,' was to plop a family down in the middle of this drug-fueled mess. Meet Veronica, a middle-aged mother who's been doing meth for so long she appears to have lost most or all her teeth. Meet Teddy, her son who gets high, goes to prison, gets sober, and, well, you have to watch the movie to find out what happens next. Her other adult children reel in and out of the camera's range and through various impoverished houses in which pets crap on the floor and people cover it up with blankets and clothes. All the offspring are trapped in the tortured struggle of buying into or attempting to escape the ever-whirling vortex that is their mother's seemingly contagious affection for meth in its pure form: ice."
I intend to write a review of "Ozark," but haven't done so yet. I highly recommend it. It's about a financial planner who gets involved in some trouble. It's better than the trailer. Give it a look. It's on Netflix.
The other day, I paid a visit to a nearly $5M LaFerrari. I got to sit in it, but not drive it. Read all about it in the latest post on my Forbes blog: "For $4.35 Million, This Gently Used 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari Can Be Yours."
I recommend the Nick Cave documentary, "One More Time with Feeling." It's beautiful, and heartbreaking, and a lot about how to keep creating, even when the worst things happen.
I binge-watched "Last Chance U" this weekend on Netflix, and it's great. NB: I'm not even really a football fan. Of course, the series isn't really about football at all. It's about how hard it is to get ahead when you've grown up hard, and it's about how to deal with life when it starts to rain shit. It's beautifulLY shot and artfully edited. Really, it's a gorgeous, complicated exploration about what it means to be a young black man in the South. The characters it follows most closely are examined with compassionate intimacy; you get to dwell in the complications of a coach who doesn't always do what he says and players who are deeply conflicted about making it big. The timing is also perfect. This isn't a Cinderella story. Its ending is as complex as its start.
Buy THE TUMOR, a digital short by Susannah Breslin that's been called "A masterpiece of short fiction."
My most recent piece for Forbes, why advertisers are pulling out of "Dating Naked":
"The recent ad removal was inspired by the Parents Television Council, which describes itself as 'A non-partisan educational organization advocating responsible entertainment,' but exists primarily to rid television programming of seemingly unseemly content."
I binge watched the second season of "Transparent" a few days ago. It was really, really lovely. A lot of feels, and a lot of nodding to the imperfection of everything, and an homage to crazy LA.
Watch it.
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
I really enjoyed "Ex Machina." Very weird! Very beautiful. A gorgeous house. A transparent robot. A man who becomes unsure if he's human or droid. The mad scientist fucks with their heads. My favorite scene was a nod to that scene in that "Alien" movie when the created meets its previous manifestations. Creeepyyyy. Also: It's a lovely homage to the ruthlessness of women, manufactured or not. See it if you like minimalism, machines, and mindfucking.
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
Image credit: Clayton Cubitt
Amazing! A terrific profile of Clayton Cubitt and collaborator Katie James on "Hysterical Literature": "I'll Read What She's Reading." Writer Toni Bentley had the balls to do it herself.
Eight feet from the front edge of the table was Cubitt’s camera on a tripod. It would remain stationary for the entire session, no shaky hand-held camera work for this particular project: just a single, head-on P.O.V. It was left to Katie to do the hand-held work under the table with what Cubitt calls her “paintbrush,” a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator—also known as “Big Buzzy.” “I think she’s the actual artist involved,” says Cubitt. “I just press Record and stand back.”
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
The other night I watched "Nightingale," an HBO movie starring David Oyelowo as a guy going nuts. Something terrible happens, and you watch as the main character's mind unspools. The best things: Oyelowo's disturbing, nuanced, terrifying performance, the gorgeously dated interiors, the brilliant writing. The worst things: well, there aren't really any, unless you don't like watching people unhinge. One of the most intriguing and rare things about "Nightingale" is that it forces you to follow in the footsteps and faux rational thinking of a deeply unreliable narrator. No one else makes an appearance in the movie, so, as a viewer, you are left with two choices: go it alone or trust the nutbird. And because Oyelowo's articulation of the man going mad is so careful, you find yourself wanting to believe: in him, in something, in resolution. There isn't really any -- not anything that's good anyway. Still, the reason to watch it is that it provides a considered alternative to the hysteria our culture inhabits every time someone unhinged does something insane. We want to declare: That person is Other. In fact, the most disturbing thing about someone who goes off the rails is how much we see of ourselves in them, which, of course, indicates how close we are to doing the same thing -- or, you know, something like it. In the end, the movie's clever use of technology -- an iPhone, a laptop camera -- reminds us that nowadays, craziness isn't just for loners. It's a show for us all, one that we can't get enough of watching.
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
[via This Isn't Happiness]
I ended up in this $8M house today, for reasons that are neither here nor there. It had a lovely pool, and a massive master bedroom that led to a deck that looked over the pool, and the guy made some comment like your 60-foot boat in the dock would be the same size as your pool, or what have you. Across the street, homes were going for five and six times as much. It was the middle of the day. Mostly, the people driving and walking around the area were workers: lawn care specialists, housekeepers and children-minders, huge teams of men building castles bigger than I've ever seen facing the ocean.
"Lucy." Starring ScarJo. Written/directed by Luc Besson. It's no "Under the Skin," but it'll do. Lucy is an accidental drug mule in Taiwan. She ends up getting hyper-dosed with blue crystals that make you smarter than Bradley Cooper in "Limitless." Now, she's, like, superhuman, a superhero, some kind of superwoman. She gets chased my Asian mobsters, flirts with a French cop, and kills people because, why not? For some reason, the smarter she gets, the more she acts like a robot (???). Her boobs never change. Just her IQ. Best line: "I'm colonizing my own brain." YOU GO, GIRL. It's all very feminist, but in a way that doesn't make you want to vomit. Sadly, it lacks "The Fifth Element"'s happy happy joy joy. This is more grim. More French. More remorse. The special effects are questionable. The ending is absurd. Still, there are those ... lips.