Film Poll 2007
The Fanzine12.31.07
Welcome to the first annual Fanzine year-end Film Poll. Don’t expect to find Oscar nominees, sleeper hits, or good taste in this survey. This is strictly about our love of movies. Contributors include Benjamin Strong, Mark Asch, Samantha Culp, Kevin Killian, Michael Louie, and Nancy Keefe Rhodes.
Don’t Drink The Creek Water: JT’s Southern Hospitality
Nick Sylvester12.29.07
9 out of 10 Fanziners agree, Justin Timberlake is hands down the most talented ex-Mouskateer of them all! But does that mean the southern bred gentleman has the Midas touch with any ol’ thing (like the restaurant business)? Nick Sylvester makes it a few months late to the opening party for Southern Hospitality, Timberlake’s co-owned BBQ joint in Manhattan – but Hospitality is taking reservations for a New Years bash, so if you missed their opener too, come on down, but good luck spotting JT. Art by Danny Jock.
Silent Teacher Remembered: Hannah Weiner’s Open House
Thom Donovan12.20.07
It’s been ten years since poet, artist, and self-professed "clairvoyant" journalist Hannah Weiner died. This past month, people gathered at St. Mark’s Church in New York City’s Lower East Side to remember this unique individual, to share slides and stories, and perhaps act as she often did, as mediums, to recall her spirit to our present. Thom Donovan was there, and here is his account of the happening (which included a reading of Hannah Weiner’s Open House) and thoughts on the artist in general.
Talk Show 6: Susan Cheever, Rachel Kadish, Daphne Kalotay, Mameve Medwed, Hannah Tinti, Vendela Vida
Jaime Clarke12.17.07
In Talk Show 6, Jaime Clarke asks authors Susan Cheever, Rachel Kadish, Mameve Medwed, Hannah Tinti, and Vendela Vida to conjure memories of their first day of school. Art by Danny Jock.
Berlin Alexanderplatz on Criterion DVD
Mark Asch12.07.07
Long unavailable on these shores, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s monumentous Berlin Alexanderplatz super-sizes the defining obsessions of a prodigious career. Criterion’s long-awaited DVD box is your one-stop shop for decaying social structures, sexual opportunism, and righteous, bracing aesthetics; Mark Asch breaks it down.
Interview with Roger Warren Beebe
Nancy Keefe Rhodes12.06.07
Filmmaker Roger Warren Beebe believes experimental movies are for the masses, and to prove it he led an avant-garde roadshow across the States. Nancy Keefe Rhodes talks with the director about his tour and the varieties of non-commercial filmmaking.
Is it Over Yet?: Overtime in College Football
Adam Underhill11.27.07
Are you over it yet? College Football’s overtime? Goes on a fortnight right? After two important games this past weeked went on ad infinitum (it seemed), Adam Underhill laments that these college guys can’t get it together and wrap up a game like a pro. Art by Danny Jock.
Talk Show 5: with Maud Casey, Myla Goldberg, Karl Iagnemma, Christopher Sorrentino
Jaime Clarke11.26.07
In the 5th installment of Talk Show, Fanzine’s regular hot seat thing-a-ma-jig for writers, host Jaime Clarke speaks with authors Maud Casey, Myla Goldberg, Karl Iagnemma and Christopher Sorrentino. The conversation is framed by this challenge: "Name an historical event you wish you would’ve witnessed/participated in and why." Art by Danny Jock.
Megaphone Guy & The Deadly Snark
Nick Sylvester11.19.07
Genius grant recipient, satirist, and short story writer George Saunders released his first non-fiction essay collection, The Braindead Megaphone, earlier this Fall. In the title essay, Saunders discusses the fatal flaws of mainstream news media and sends it up in the process – not unlike what Gawker Media set out to do with The Gawker Guide To Conquering All Media, the internet company’s first foray into print. Nick Sylvester examines both efforts and decides which was more successful. Art by Danny Jock.
Imprints 5: Tom Perrotta, Gay Talese, Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne
Zach Baron11.15.07
In Zach Baron’s 5th Imprints, a monthly books column, his theme is sex, and as a befitting follow up to Mailer, it tends towards the macho, then twists back to the humorously male deprecating. Included in the review is Gay Talese’s classic Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Legs McNeil & Jennifer Osborne’s The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film, and a new one by "lapsed Roman Catholic" Tom Perrotta, The Abstinence Teacher, a novel which pits the prurient against the pious in a high school setting.
