If the actor's remaining performances are numbered, I would hate like hell to think of what we missed just so that we could have this.
Bullet Train is one of those movies so taken with its own hip facetiousness—think of any of the Tarantino imitations that multiplied in the '90s the way Trump lawsuits do now—that early on you know you're not going to have to expend any mental energy keeping the plot straight or any emotional energy having a stake in what happens. The filmmakers have already told you that nothing matters except hyper-stylization. The director, David Leitch, has a specialty in choreographed fight scenes and there are plenty, augmented with tossed-off brutality, apposite and ironic pop-culture tropes, double crosses, reversals, and, inevitably, a big destruct-o-rama to finish things off. You don't have to worry about being grossed out or upset by the various shootings, beatings, stabbings, stompings, arterial spray, or flashbacks to a scene of mass projectile blood vomiting. (Somebody on the production team apparently really digs this; we see it four times.) I suppose in a way that it's relaxing. The ruckus on screen is going to continue whether we pay attention or not and so you can just sit there, thinking about where you're going to have dinner, and if you'll make it home in time for MeTV's 11:30 p.m. Perry Mason rerun. |
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| The new year is looking bright, all thanks to these releases. |
| Stock up on button-ups, board shorts, and all things terrycloth. |
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Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was enlivened by Sen. Ted Tailgunner Cruz's putting his boots on the committee table in a dead-on Nikita Khrushchev impression, railing at FBI Director Christopher Wray about some purported training materials that Cruz felt disrespected some of his more beloved cosplay accessories. But this tantrum already is being thrown by conservatives generally—Marjorie Taylor-Greene is in on it, too—so we should all get used to it. |
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Including Liz Taylor and Mike Todd's tropical escape. |
| Including answers to vital questions like, What are The Endless?, Where is The Dreaming?, and What the hell is Lucifer doing here??? |
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For a brief spell, I wrote a featured gossip column for the New York Post. Three days a week, the column appeared in the slot once occupied by Leonard Lyons. It bore my name as its title and was accompanied by my postage-stamp-size photograph. The result was a certain personal celebrity and a measure of power I had never before known. The power derived from the fact that exposure is a precious commodity, and my column could provide it in spades. The celebrity meant that I was recognized and sought out in public places, flattered by waitresses at the Stage Delicatessen and questioned with endless curiosity about my job. It also made me an open target for criticism, personal and professional, sometimes inaccurate, occasionally vicious and always disheartening. I lived a fast life and one result may have been inevitable: for a time, I became almost totally self-absorbed. Admonished to distrust the flattery and to keep my distance from the glamour, I grew infatuated with both. And like any infatuation, mine was blind. |
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