I just flew back to the U.S., just in time to watch the Democratic Convention’s opening night. I’m amazed by how Soviet my country has become, or always was. We love these hokey big ceremonies just as much as any totalitarian country. I flipped the channel away from the Convention coverage and wound up on the opening day of the US Open, and there it was again—more ceremony, with all the hokey Soviet nostalgia that comes with it. Jesus, even the US Open has succumbed, (more…)

If you haven’t seen Tropic Thunder yet, go now. There are scenes in it so hilarious the whole audience goes into laugh-convulsions for minutes at a time, and you’re only going to participate in that “maybe-humanity-isn’t-so-bad-it-does-comedy” phenomenon about a dozen times in your life, so why are you still reading this review? Go! Go!

For those of you who’ve seen it already, is there some way, do you think, to get Robert Downey Jr. an Oscar for this thing? (more…)

There are three basic facts to keep in mind about the smokin’ little war in Ossetia:

1. The Georgians started it.
2. They lost.
3. What a beautiful little war!

For me, the most important is #3, the sheer beauty of the video clips that have already come out of this war. I’m in heaven right now.

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Previews—I love ‘em, don’t you? Occasionally you’ll meet someone who doesn’t, who regards them as speed-bumps on the way to the main feature, the best time to buy popcorn or check their stocks or something. They’re to be avoided, those people. Because it’s obvious that when you pay an absurd price to see the feature, what makes it worthwhile is the five-to-ten additional movies shown to you in the form of previews. (more…)

What does the American surrender monkey call it when he is defeated in the Iraq War, and he is forced to retreat? A real country can accept defeat like a man, admit that it lost and it is retreating, as even someone as weak as Gorbachev did when he pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. (more…)