By John Dolan
![Jonathan Franzen: "Will Rim Bobos For Book-Of-The-Month Fame"](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/franzen-time-cover1-270x270.jpg)
This review was first published in The eXile on March 21, 2002. Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections, billed as a masterpiece, is a worthless fraud, a hopelessly trite story gaudied up with tedious overwriting. The overwriting is meant to conceal…
By Mark Ames
![How To Annoy Obama's Russia "Expert": An Exile Classic Prank Featuring Our Old Nemesis Michael McFaul](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/mcfool3-270x270.jpg)
This classic “prank” first published in the summer of 1999 ranks as one of the eXile’s least-successful pranks (which paradoxically made it x-tra annoying) on our longtime nemesis Michael McFaul–formerly a top Clinton USAID official in Moscow, Carnegie Endowment and…
By Eileen Jones
![Scott Pilgrim vs. the Box-office](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/55487254-270x270.jpg)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a financial flop so far, I don’t know why exactly. It’s aimed directly at the prized demographic of Young People Who Still Go to Theaters to See Movies If Anyone Does, In Order to…
By Mark Ames
![Death Of "The Assassin"](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sp-tatum28_PH_cu_0502016087-270x270.jpg)
I just found out–belatedly–that one of my childhood heroes, Jack Tatum, died of a heart attack a few days ago. When Tatum played for the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s, he was the most intimidating football player of his time–not…
By Mark Ames
![Russia's Original Gangstas: Meet The Gopniki](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/gop-5-270x270.jpg)
This article first appeared in The eXile on June 1, 2007 For months now, our overseas readers have been asking us, “What’s a gopnik?” They have a vague idea of what a gopnik looks like, thanks to our Face Control page:…
By Gary Brecher
![The War Nerd Returns: Be Famous Or Be Shot Tryin'](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Untitled-270x270.jpg)
I know, I know, I’ve been AWOL a long time. Shoot me. No, seriously. I wouldn’t object. It’d be great to get shot, as long as it was quick and fatal, not somewhere like the shin, where you scream like…
By Eileen Jones
![Predators: Killing the Talkative](https://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/500x_predat-270x270.jpg)
I found Predators to be amusing as hell, but then, I was in just the right mood for it. I’d had one of those brain-melting work weeks when you do nothing but talk to people, prepare to talk to people,…