Penoptic

One year ago tomorrow, a film came out into wide release in the United States that, even then, I cringed at. The film was No Reservations , starring Aaron Eckhart (late of The Dark Knight where he plays the idealistic Harvey Dent who succumbs to his evil alter-ego, Two-Face) and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who hasn't needed much of an introduction since she burst onto the pop culture scene in 1998's The Mask of Zorro . The reason I cringed then was because I knew, as few of my contemporaries did, that this film was based on a German film from 2002 called Bella Martha , better known to English-speaking audiences as Mostly Martha . During the summer of 2004 I went on a foreign film frenzy; I devoured almost three per week, and that few only because Netflix doesn't offer same-day delivery. A friend of mine got me started on this frenzy by lending me Babette's Feast and Mostly Martha . These films remain two of the finest films I've seen in the last ten years, and Mostly Ma...

It's said that there are two kinds of people in the world; the kind who, if their house was burning, would save their Beatles collection, and the kind who, if their house was burning, would save their Rolling Stones collection. I've always been one of the former. I just never understood what people saw in the Stones. Sure, I've got a few Stones songs in my music collection - eleven or twelve, in fact - and you have to admit that, overplayed though they are, some of their songs are so emblematic that they embody not just a mood but an entire generation. That, I get. What I don't get, what I've never gotten, is the thought that Mick Jagger is sexy or a god of rock n' roll. I remember watching some TV show about him when I was 12 or so that had all these famous women he'd slept with, swearing up and down that they'd never met any man who was sexier. They juxtaposed these confessional interviews with concert footage of Jagger doing what I guess is supposed t...

What follows is an article I submitted privately today that will never see publication anywhere else. My lawyers tell me I still have the rights to it, so I'm posting here just for fun. Because as soon as anyone thinks of fun, you just know the words "private equity" aren't far behind. ~*~*~*~ If private equity had to choose a theme song, R.E.M.’s ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’ would be a top contender. Henry Kravis, founding partner of the firm Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts (KKR) might have had that song running through his head yesterday. Protesters from MoveOn.org , the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and political and economic activists gathered outside of KKR offices in New York, Menlo Park, Calif., Hong Kong and London to voice their objections to the tax breaks and loopholes that private equity firms use to make billions of dollars on buyouts. Other protests, organized in 24 countries on six continents, according to the Global...

Always remembering how important it is to learn more about women throughout history who have totally kicked ass, I present: Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Yes, that Cleopatra. Hollywood has (and will likely continue to) tried to show us through extremely exorbitant and ornate sets and costumes exactly how rich, glamorous, sexy, et cetera, Cleopatra was, but she was also someone who really couldn't bear to be outdone in anything. While entertaining Marc Antony and his officers on her royal barge outside of Tarsus (now in modern-day Turkey) Cleopatra made a bet with Antony that she could consume a fortune in a single meal. The next night she put on another lavish dinner, and at the end of it Antony declared himself the winner, saying that this meal, while very nice, wasn't any more expensive or impressive than the one they'd had yesterday. To this, Cleopatra had a glass of vinegar brought to her. She took off one of her pearl earrings, estimated at "the value of fifteen countri...