2,484 words
Dr. Sidney Schafer (James Coburn) is a therapist at the top of his game. He’s clever, probing, a master of his profession, and James Coburn gives his character a smirk of pride while his eyes probe his patients in this 1967 satire. His office is very sixties, abounding in modern art and decor, and set on a table is a Chinese gong. Why a gong? Memories of foreign travel? A way to summon the Emperor or expel demons? Schafer is, after all, an emperor of therapy. (more…)
10,882 words
Editor’s note: This is a transcript of Millennial Woes’ speech at the 2017 London Forum. We would like to thank Hyacinth Bouquet for this transcript. (more…)
2,283 words
Withnail & I (1987) is a masterpiece of British dark-comic satire written and directed by actor, novelist, and screenwriter Bruce Robinson, who went on to write and direct How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), another strong film in a similar vein. His career seems to have petered out, though, after a couple of flops, Jennifer 8 (1992) and The Rum Diary (2011).
Richard E. Grant made his film debut playing Withnail. (He was also the lead in How to Get Ahead in Advertising.) Paul McGann played Marwood, the “I” in the title. (more…)
1,920 words
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a famed French actress, singer, pop culture icon, and accidental provocateur. Bardot’s marks on pop culture include her popularization of the bikini, the eponymous Bardot neckline, and her collection of absurdly fun and often intriguing slices of French pop music that feel both timeless in their replay value yet (more…)
2,180 words
George Lewis
Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement
London: Hodder Education, 2006
There are very few books that cover the white response to the “civil rights” movement very seriously. Professor George Lewis of the University of Leicester (UK) has done such a work. However, the book maintains the flaws of all histories of “civil rights,” (more…)
1,901 words
Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) has been one of my favorite films since I saw it on the big screen while living in darkest Atlanta. A few years later, post-red pill, I bought the DVD and was struck anew at the brilliance of the script, performances, and direction. But I was also struck by the sheer whiteness of this film, which is set in 1958 and 1959 in New York City and Italy (Rome, Venice, the Bay of Naples). There’s nothing new about the idea of “escapist” entertainment. (more…)
2,155 words
Full text of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood Speech here. One can hear it read here.
The single most talked-about Member of the British Parliament today was a lowly backbencher who was kicked out of the shadow government of his party. The cause of this strange situation is the farsightedness of the man combined with his extraordinary eloquence. The backbencher’s name: Enoch Powell. (more…)
Dearden and his clapper.
3,951 words
For decades now, I’ve been waiting for someone to package an oversized picture book called The Films of Basil Dearden. The 1970s would have been a good time for that, since Dearden died in ’71 (car accident), and this mid-rank British director was in need of appreciation. (more…)
1,643 words
Christopher Caldwell
The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020
In 2015, Kim Davis, a frumpy county clerk from a Nowheresville in Appalachia, refused to issue gay marriage licenses and was briefly jailed as a result. Additionally, Davis and her fellow office workers were subjected to the cruelest of internet jokes. Ironically, in the months before Davis was bullied on a nationwide scale, (more…)
1,691 words
Kent Alexander & Kevin Salwen
The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle
New York: Abrams, 2019
Richard Jewell was an obese Georgia homeboy who wanted to be a hero and serve in law enforcement. He got his wish: His short life was crowded with heroism. (more…)
1,664 words
Christopher Caldwell
The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020
The 1960s forever transformed America. Race relations, sexual relations, popular culture, music, foreign policy, trust in government, and urban life were all dramatically changed. (more…)
1,674 words
Few recording groups in human history have left behind a wholly worthless legacy. But then there’s the Grateful Dead, who are remarkable for their ability to poison an entire music scene with their catalog of half-baked, consumerizing, milquetoast wannabe-radical jam band masturbation — and then get praised by music journalists from 1960 to 2020.