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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
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- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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Tag Archives: John Travolta
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” — Lily Tomlin
It’s her birthday today. I wrote about Lily Tomlin (and other talented actresses who come from comedy/improv) in my “Present Tense” Film Comment column. She is on another level. I mean … A couple years back, as part of an … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day, Television
Tagged John Travolta, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Robert Altman
7 Comments
Mirrors #5: For Oscilloscope: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Here it is, a piece I have wanted to write for years, and finally got around to it. For Oscilloscope: Mirror, Mirror: When Movie Characters Look Back at Themselves
Posted in Movies
Tagged Alain Delon, Faye Dunaway, Francis Ford Coppola, Fritz Lang, Gena Rowlands, John Travolta, Johnny Handsome, M, Marlon Brando, Martin Scorsese, Martin Sheen, Mickey Rourke, mirrors, Paul Schrader, Peter Lorre, Richard Gere, Robert De Niro, Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, Sylvester Stallone, Taxi Driver, William Shakespeare
19 Comments
Performances I Loved This Year
I still haven’t seen a couple of big ones. Hence … it’s a work in progress, and I’m sure I’m forgetting people. But these stand out. Royalty Hightower, “The Fits” [My review] Matthias Schoenaerts, “A Bigger Splash” Cliff Curtis, “The … Continue reading
Review: In a Valley of Violence (2016)
A Western starring Ethan Hawke and John Travolta. It’s not perfect, but God, when it works, it works. Here’s my review at Ebert.
“Royale With Cheese!”
Next up in the series I’ve been doing for Epicurious on food in film, is a piece on Pulp Fiction. There’s barely a scene without food in it. The monologue about blueberry pancakes always makes me hungry.
Eating like Tarantino taught you: the food in Pulp Fiction
This piece on the food in Pulp Fiction was originally published in Epicurious, March 2014. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with his first feature “Reservoir Dog” in 1992. But it was “Pulp Fiction”, two years later, that was … Continue reading

