Jessica Chastain by Peter Lindbergh

REVIEW: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’—The Meaningless Artifice of the Blank Expression

In interest of full disclosure, let me say that I haven’t seen all of Kathryn Bigelow’s new film—a popcorn machine caught fire at the Arclight last night and we were evacuated during the crucial assault on the Abbottabad compound scene, I’m guessing fifteen minutes or so before the end of an overly long two and a half hours. Everyone thought at first that the alarms and flashing exit lights were part of the film itself. 

Some Bottom Bitches Scream Too Loud

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

It’s been a while now since I’ve taken a potshot or two at my evil twin Andrew Sullivan.  In truth, I’ve become sort of ambivalent about him, as opposed to hostile; his position on cannabis usage—that making a plant which grows naturally illegal, but letting alcoholic beverages, which are manmade, be not only legal but socially acceptable and an integral part of many religious ceremonies is hypocritical—is a laudable one.  I take a further libertarian view towards all drugs: if you are old enough to know what you want and can make an informed decision, and provided you don’t harm others—i.e., by getting slaughtered on legal ethanol and causing a lethal traffic accident—then nobody should tell you what to do.  Let’s not go into the safety issues of having drugs manufactured in dodgy labs by pseudo-chemists with no regulation; hardcore drugs users are people too, and deserve FDA protection as much as any alcohol drinker or anxiety-riddled pill-popping suburban soccer mom.

Proto-douche Andrew Sullivan has some decent points, but they are wiped out by other nonsense he stands for and spews forth. And, Andrew, what is that shirt? Moiré? Snicker.

But the sensible cannabis stance is outweighed by Sullivan’s other more insensible positions, like his advocacy of unprotected sex, for himself in particular because he’s Poz; the AIDS crisis is apparently over, according to him.  Well, it would be, now that he has—forgive my French—taken so many infected loads up his ass that he has surrendered to the disease.  But that doesn’t make the crisis any where near over for the vast majority of people, especially the young ‘uns, people who don’t sit on a sanctimonious high horse during the day, only to get off it and behave like a total bottom pig slut at night.

Our Outhouse

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | THE INDIA FILES

by James Killough

Perhaps my relentless optimism has finally driven me to a completely delusional state, but I feel there’s a tangible change in the air, a change for the better, like we’re finally turning this old rusted tankard we all live on around.

The Magical Weekend began once upon a time last Friday, when the fairy princess dressed by a dead queen stepped into her carriage and the world smiled in the reflection of her happiness.  Princess Kate waved her magic wand, which unfroze our hitherto Fearful Leader from over two years of slumber.  As he rose from his sepulcher amidst the briars and shook off the cobwebs, King Barack seized his vorpal sword, strode into the banquet and slew the fruminous Donaldsnatch, after which, with what seemed to be the same stroke, he felled the elusive Osama Bin Jabberwocky.

This is the bit when, after the witch is killed, eternal winter melts away and Narnia kicks into bloom in an explosion of time-lapse foliage.  Prancing satyrs like me, until now locked in stone, surge forth once again to roam the hills, making sweet music, drinking wine and chasing other satyrs instead of nymphs.