The Bicholim Conflict Hoax
“The Bicholim Conflict is a figment of a creative Wikipedian’s imagination. It’s a huge, laborious, 4,500 word hoax. And it fooled Wikipedia editors for more than 5 years.” The Daily Dot has more.
Steve Coll on Zero Dark Thirty
Ghost Wars: The Secret Wars of the CIA author Steve Coll writes of Zero Dark Thirty: “Zero Dark Thirty was constructed to bring viewers to the edges of their seats, and judging by its critical reception, for many viewers it has succeeded in that respect. Its faults as […]
“Django Unchain My Heart (And Set Me Free)”
Jim Emerson ponders what he finds good and bad in Django Unchained and a lot of the good is Christoph Waltz: “Quentin Tarantino has found his actor in Christoph Waltz — someone who can speak Tarantinian fluently and still make it his own.” (via Roger Ebert)
“Tarantino Unchained”
Jelani Cobb considers Django Unchained and history at The New Yorker. “Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware […]
Serpico Now
The New York Times profiles Frank Serpico: “Pacino played Serpico better than I did.” (via Andrew Nette)
Escaping the Truck Stop Killer
“[It] occurred to me that this investigation of mine wasn’t a detective novel. It was a ghost story.” In 1985, Vanessa Veselka escaped a terrifying trucker who probably was Robert Ben Rhoades, the Truck Stop Killer and, years later, tries to understand her experience and learn more about […]
The Cultural Gutter 