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Adam von Rothfelder
January 4, 2013
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

5 Resolutions You Can Live With, Without (Too Much) Sacrifice

I’m going to begin with a hats-off to myself, via a bit of news that is seemingly irrelevant to this piece, but I’ll pick it up later on and weave it in like magic.  Promise.

A sensible thing happened this week, and it wasn’t the fiscal cliff compromise: My evil twin, Andrew Sullivan, was either booted out by Tina Brown at The Daily Beast, or he didn’t renew his contract on purpose, which seems unlikely to this Sully cynic.  He’s now going to charge for his content and go his merry way with his pooches and staff of seven.  Given the trouble Tina has had this year with Newsweek ceasing print publication and other internal upheavals—not to mention Sully’s embarrassing, unnecessary meltdown after Obama’s first debate, which singlehandedly un-pundited the super-blogger once and for all—I have a feeling he was a vanity case that could no longer be supported.

As a content creator, I wish Sully well, I really do.  He’s a smart guy, often misguided in his opinions, so blinkered in his observations that he is blinded (not a good trait for a pundit), not to mention as hysterical a queen as queens can get, but he works hard, thinks harder and deserves a measure of success.  I’m also sure this experience will transform him and balance him out.  Eventually.

So, in addition to my slogan, “Shoot your heroes,” I add another: Deflate all divas.  It’s for their own good.

Andrew Sullivan and Staff

Sully and staff put on brave faces for the year ahead. Tinsel and youth help.

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By James Killough
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May 23, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES, THE INDIA FILES

Unequal Opportunity Offender

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | THE INDIA FILES

by James Killough

Let me immediately state that, despite the title, there will be no borderline pornographic body parts in this post.  But just the fact I have willfully boxed PFC into a corner where I have to make that caveat is relevant to this article.  I think.

First, take a look at this viral video currently eliciting belly laughs across the Interweb:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IYeETAVsQA&w=425&h=349]

It’s a fake, of course.  The bride sort of gives it away, but the drunk woman herself is also too alert; her face lacks the woozy, careless expression of someone who is no longer in control of her actions.  In a way — in a convoluted, forced association sort of way — the video is representative of what I’ve been doing with the content of this blog.

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By James Killough
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March 12, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

The Venerable Johnny Depp

Praise the Lord.  I have seen Johnny Depp’s apotheosis and it is named Rango.  It’s like he’s pulled together all of his work since Edward Scissorhands into one masterpiece symphony in the form of an animated feature.  It all makes sense now.  Rango tips its mottled cowboy hat to Ed Wood, to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but most of all, intentionally or not, to Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, the last Jarmusch film I truly enjoyed, as opposed to feeling flattened by enervation.

I don't know why they kept calling Rango a lizard when he was in fact a chameleon. I know, chameleons are lizards, but lizards makes them sound so pedestrian. Maybe the studios felt that American audiences would be too tempted to pronounce the "ch."

If you haven’t heard by now, Rango is truly trippy, brilliantly written, gorgeously animated, superbly voiced, and I have serious doubts it will ever make its real cost back.  If the studio reported a budget of $135 million, it’s bound to be much more than that.  Rango is basically an art film with a big Hollywood finish, which you really don’t mind because the whole journey is so jaw-droppingly audacious and bizarre.  It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever been sexually attracted to a rattlesnake.

One hot motherfucker. If you ignore the fact he is voiced by Bill Nighy, this is the sexiest cartoon character since the Beast in "Beauty and the Beast."

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By Pure Film Creative
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March 5, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Lady Gaga's All‑You‑Can‑Eat Vag Buffet

I have to admit, I briefly joined my nieces, Savannah (7) and Uma (5.5), as a fan of Lady Gaga after Bad Romance was released last year.  I thought it was stompin’ good fun, not to mention that it kept me company whenever I thought about my love life.  But she has lost me with this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw&w=640&h=390]

In a nutshell, it’s a very expensive sophomore art school project.  She is trying too hard and the results of her efforts fall short of her earlier video work.  And, yes, that last sentence was rewritten several times; Galliano has homos worldwide stopping themselves before they go too far with what they really think.

Even though my nieces are Episcopalian Hindus — also known in the more rarified circles of Tribeca as ‘Piscadoos’ — at the risk of sounding like an avuncular prig, I’m not sure I want them to see filmed reenactments of the Black Goddess Kali giving birth to the cosmos as might be interpreted by H.R. Giger.  I can just imagine explaining this video to them.

“Uncle James, what is Lady Gaga doing with her cooch-cooch?”

“She’s letting her vagina enjoy a David Cronenberg moment, darling.  And stop calling it cooch-cooch, you’re making it sound like a region in West Bengal.”

“What do you mean what you just said she’s doing with her vagina, then?”

“We’ll talk about it when you’re old enough to watch twisted R-rated psycho-dramas funded by the Canadian government.  How about we watch something appropriate, like The Tudors?”

They love The Tudors.

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By Pure Film Creative
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