Author: Rick Levin

Go Ask Alice

Film

Film has a long and fairly distinguished history of satirizing the insidious allure of televised celebrity — Being There, King of Comedy and To Die For come immediately to mind — and yet few films to date have captured the way our newly acquired addiction to selfies and social media is elevating narcissism to a collective pathology. Continue reading →

The Original Birdman

An interview with Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney, the man behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch

Culture

Like so many of us, I grew up on Sesame Street, that magical Manhattan block where fuzzy puppets and real people cooperate and collaborate and teach the ABCs of life. Seated before the television in my pajamas, laughing at Ernie’s antics and wondering what it was like inside Oscar’s garbage can, I was gifted the rudiments of an education that was at once practical and deeply moral. Big Bird still breaks my heart. Oscar still makes me giggle. Continue reading →

Four Dead in Ohio

Film

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio governor called a regiment of the National Guard onto the campus of Kent State University. The troops then opened fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians — mostly students protesters — killing four and injuring nine more, including one man who was paralyzed for life. It bears repeating: U.S. troops fired 67 rounds into a crowd of U.S. citizens exercising their right to peaceably assemble. Continue reading →

Destabilizing Agents

Film

In his groundbreaking 1978 book Orientalism, the late critic Edward Said went after the West’s misconceptions about the exotic and inscrutable otherness of Asian cultures, often so lavishly and fantastically portrayed in colonial writing. “From the beginning of Western speculation about the Orient,” Said wrote, “the one thing the Orient could not do was represent itself.” Continue reading →

Sexually Transmitted Demon

Film

In his groundbreaking 1996 movie Scream, director Wes Craven — with help from Kevin Williamson’s cheeky postmodern screenplay — peeled back the mask on modern horror, revealing a set of previously unspoken rules governing the mayhem in teen slasher flicks. Among those rules to avoiding murder (“Don’t do drugs!”), perhaps the most resonant for a generation living under the specter of AIDS was this: No premarital hanky-panky. In other words, when it comes to surviving a horror movie, always remember that sex equals death. Continue reading →