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Charlie Wilson’s War On Computer Love
by Molly Lambert
Johnny Depp has a bonerst for Conor Oberst
I was disappointed to learn that Charlie Wilson’s War has nothing to do with Charlie Wilson, lead singer of The Gap Band. I thought Tom Hanks seemed like an odd casting choice, but he is the American Everyman. Or is Will Smith the new Everyman? Hmm…
Charlie Wilson: You dropped the bomb on me, baby!
Females are unrelentingly wry, work much harder than men. It must be weird for dudes to feel obsolete. They should channel those feelings into bro time and hugs.
Speaking of bros, Josh Brolin likes the sweet caterwauls of Eddie Vedder. So does Alex Carnevale.
Excerpt from a Lambert family holiday dinner table discussion:
“What’s the female equivalent of an Uncle Tom?”
“A Condoleezza.”
The opposite of Condi, naturally, is Michelle Obama.
Charlie Wilson, Joanne Herring, and John Tower.
Charlie Wilson’s War is directed by Mike Nichols. Like fellow ex-pat European Jew Billy Wilder, he brings a coolness and a kind of super dark cynicism to his projects. Like Stanley Kubrick, he aims to illuminate the faults in human nature and show that we are basically animals. Like Paul Verhoeven, he often paints America as an evil seductress.
Carnal Knowledge three-way ties with Eyes Wide Shut and Showgirls as the best anti-erotic films about explicit sex ever made. Closer is just okay, and David Cronenberg’s Crash is awful but has to be somewhere on the list.
I had a lot to say about Nichols and former writing partner Elaine May a few days ago, you may remember.
2 TRU EMG!
Emily Gould and I are both fans of Tom Perotta and his briskly moving unpretentious prose. Emily has broken up with the internet, but it is still completely in love with her.
George Gurley is the ghost of Jacob Lodwick’s future.
Tionna Smalls always brings the goods in her advice column, and you don’t you want to be left with a wet ass and some Chinese food now do you?
Jessica Grose and I have similarly conflicted feelings about Joan Didion.
Is the neo-crafting movement future-feminist or offensively retrograde?
“I can’t decide whether to get married this Christmas or come back and face all my problems.” – “Overheard on the Barnard Campus” – from The New Yorker, November 1957, via Julia Allison.
Diablo Cody on the impossible double standards of beauty and gender. Add her on myspace already, jeez.
Our Susie Of The Perpetural Essman
Pretty people do get paid more.
Are you friends with your exes? Because in this post-post-post-modern e-world that doesn’t preclude them from sending you shitty apology poems ten years after you might have given a fuck.
Gen-X is much less slutty than you might think.
So long Frank Lloyd Robin Wright Penn. D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
Drunk history with Michael Cera and Aaron Burr.
Andy Kaufman trusted you
Joanne Herring with former President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who overthrew Zulifqar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto’s daughter Benazir was just killed. It sucks but Benazir was a total Condi. She didn’t do anything for women’s rights in a country with some of the worst rape laws in the world.
Even The Queen of England is on YouTube now. I hope she teams up with Mimi and Laura the Chongalicious girls to make videos. That would be the fiercest trio! I’m pretty sure the Queen even glues her hair. They can def upgrade her sharpie lipliner skillz.
I first misread the title of this story as The Littlest Hitler. It was semi-accurate. This makes me feel like Eloise is probably a spoiled asshole too. Blech, prep school gangsters.
Jenna Fischer has the hots for Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. Goooood call Jenna. You were great in Walk Hard
Neill Cumpston has seen Cloverfield Monster Goes Apeshit and loved it. Also Neill is probably Patton Oswalt. Review highlights:
So here’s the story: a monster attacks News York City. But that’s not the fucked-up part. The monster RIPS THE LIVING SHIT out of the city, and everyone in its path. It’s like the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina and Kathy Griffin’s vagina combined and turned into a giant murder-beast and it’s hungry for every hip person in Manhattan.
Which is another cool thing about the movie – everyone that’s getting eaten are like characters you see in those annoying movies that are always on IFC and Fagdance. Movies with titles like Thinkin’ ‘Bout Being Sad and Zoe Gets a Latte and 2 Bedrooms, 1 Bath and a Whole Bunch of Cock-fucks Running Their Mouths.
Cumpston also calls the Cloverfield monster “a pussy that eats you out.” This review so has the velveteen touch of a dandy fop. I should’ve seen the prints of an on-strike WGA member all over it right away. Amateurs are not this good unless they are me, and I’m a professional amateur.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the on/off beau of fellow three-named person Mary Louise Parker, is more of a Kyle Chandler kinda guy
With vagina dentata horror-com Teeth coming out, and Megan Fox starring in Diablo Cody’s feminist horror flick Jennifer’s Body I predict a big year all around for vagina monsters.
Dear Chuck Klosterman, Neill Cumpston and I eat bloggers like you for breakfast.
All this talk of Texas socialites reminds me how excited I am for 12 Miles Of Bad Road on HBO. Lily Tomlin as the matriarch of a Dallas real estate clan, written by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason of Designing Women and Mary Kay Place, from Big Love, is in it too. The Shakespeares may well be the new Soprano family, and Lily Tomlin its Tony. That would be so cool.
Speaking of Texans, you can stop feeling bad for Owen Wilson now. I have the feeling he’ll be just fine.
Joanne Herring on Air Force One with George H.W. Bush
Tom Scharpling on Juno. Is comparing somebody’s writing to Kevin Smith the most backhanded dis ever or what? Who writes the most dialoguey dialogue, Diablo, Kevin, or Aaron Sorkin? I’m going with Sorkin. He’s the one who thinks cokeheads can be lovable and relatable.
That’s the fail behind Studio 60 and Charlie Wilson’s War. Cokeheads are dicks, duh. Coke is for assholes and that’s why there are pot comedies but not coke comedies or pill comedies. Because a coke and pills comedy would just be a bunch of assholes being dicks to each other, and that is why Fleetwood Mac broke up.
Charlie Wilson was not in War. He was in The Gap Band.
That Girl – Pharrell ft. Snoop and Charlie Wilson: mp3
Running In And Out Of My Life – The Gap Band: mp3
Oops Up Side Your Head – The Gap Band: mp3
How Long Can It Last – UGK ft. Charlie Wilson: mp3
Quit Hatin’ The South – UGK ft. Charlie Wilson: mp3
Produced by R. Kelly!
Sometimes I’m so on point I want to quote myself back to people, but I realize that might be a little over the top. But you can all feel free to quote me. I think writers should be paid every time somebody repeats something they wrote. Like, Will Ferrell should get a dollar every time a frat guy says “I don’t know how to put this but I’m kind of a big deal.” Anyway here are some of my favorite pieces from this year, full of sentences I feel are each worthy of having their own t-shirts.
MOLLY’S PERSONAL BEST:
Wes Anderson’s consumerist lust.
My homophobic folk-singer cousin, Marly ‘Marlo’ Guthrie. I can’t take all the credit for this one. Marly is nuts.
Sex and sexism in romantic comedies and in general.
The first time I met Alex, and gender relations.
Steppenwolf and Snoopy
The new wave of naturalist indie films and my fantasy project, a Harry Nilsson biopic starring Ryan Gosling.
Molly Lambert is Senior Editor of This Recording.
12 Comments so far
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Valley of the Dolls is a great pill comedy!
Comment by Tyler December 29, 2007 @ 1:21 pmI want to understand you
Comment by J December 29, 2007 @ 3:22 pmsorkin is a golden god. my one beef with him is that i am no longer satisfied by women who can’t talk as though their words are penned by a grossly-pedantic gilbert and sullivan nerd.
it doesn’t hurt that MLP, Sabrina Lloyd, and Emily Proctor have been the mouthpieces. no joke: i would mary amy gardner today….we would fight so good.
Comment by nawanda37 December 29, 2007 @ 6:38 pmI love “I want to understand you.” Some kind of complex tone has been set with that comment beneath the eeriest self-take of all time.
Comment by tesslynch December 29, 2007 @ 8:06 pmI’m not sure why my comment didn’t appear, but in case you missed it
“What’s the female equivalent of an Uncle Tom?”
“A Condoleezza.”
Is not only retarded but extremely racist.
Comment by daziz December 31, 2007 @ 5:01 pmYou’re right, the correct answer is an Aunt Jemima or alternately, a Mammy.
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