PopEater

The world has always been infested with opinions but in the past 15 years, everyone has a platform for their views. Or a hundred seventy-five million platforms. Whereas opinions used to come in handy mainly for cocktail parties, we now need our views fully weaponized for a walk on the beach. It's all so dizzying, stressful, constant and exhausting. We know we will never get a break from it, but... ... Blank is the story of Eugene Brusca, a man who had absolutely no opinions on anything... Read Full Story

This month something happened to me that had never happened before. Absolutely unprecedented. "Infinitely" is one of our most abused adverbs, almost infinitely overused. But in this case it may be accurate to say that what happened to me is infinitely preferable to the alternative. I turned seventy-five. This happened to two friends of mine born the same day I was, a South African novelist and a master builder in New York, but I'm not polling the delegation. I'm wary of fishing for comments... Read Full Story

He had a gargantuan talent. As a young actor, his performances in Waiting For Godot , Inadmissible Evidence , and Hamlet , were inspirational. I was a student at LAMDA when I first had the privilege of seeing him, and I was blown away. His presence and his intensity were palpable. But it was the power of his imagination and his unpredictability that left audiences breathless. Nicol's gifts, however, were often accompanied by an irascible temperament that too often prevented his... Read Full Story

If you only pay attention to the press coverage and/or tweets from Sundance this year, you might think it is all about celebrity sightings, but in fact, there is some powerful paradigm shifting going on as well. I was honored to be cohost of a gathering about women in film, along with Jacki Zehner , a dear friend and superwoman in every sense, along with two great organizations— Women In Film Los Angeles and the Sundance Institute . Our collective goal was to look at the current state of... Read Full Story

LOS ANGELES -- Katy Perry is in the popular clique now. The singer-actress won the most People's Choice Awards at Wednesday's 38th annual fan-favorite extravaganza, but viewers wouldn't have known it from watching the ceremony. An absentee Perry was honored in five categories, including favorite female artist, tour headliner, song of the year for "E.T." with Kanye West, music video for "Last Friday Night" and TV guest star for "How I Met Your Mother." Despite originally being touted by... Read Full Story

My dad used to joke that holidays are that time of the year when you find yourself thrown together with people you don't really know that well or have much in common with any more. You spend too much time jammed into too little of a space, and wind up making each other miserable all in the name of "togetherness!" Dad wasn't a humbug and he was kidding... well sort of kidding. He just saw what could happen when, as he put it, we start "over-expecting" and romanticizing at Thanksgiving and... Read Full Story

Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries continued to prove just how on different pages a married couple can be on "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" (Sun., 10PM ET on E!). Kris didn't take it very well when Kim said, "I'm never moving to Minnesota. Ever." This was because she had made a deal with him that when he was done playing, he could choose their home for half the year and she would choose the other half. It would appear Kim had second thoughts about that. "How am I going to have my career... Read Full Story

Coming up England by a different line . Not my words, but those of Philip Larkin, British poet and miserable genius. God rest his soul. He loved a train. As do I. I studied Larkin at school and every time I am on a train I think of that line from his poem "I Remember I Remember." I can't help it. It is engraved on my psyche like many of the little mind scars that your school days slice into you: the times tables; squeaky chalk on dusty blackboards; the bloodcurdling chant of FIGHT, FIGHT... Read Full Story

I find myself consistently fascinated at how angry and ugly women can be on Vh-1 reality shows. Rather than attempting to understand the inner beauty that makes a human being lovable, too many seem to think that attraction comes down to long hair, a short dress and a shapely backside. The women on these reality shows actually scare me. They seem determined to remain consistently angry at someone about something. There is almost nothing that would make me proud to have them as daughters... Read Full Story

Over the last week or so, I've gotten several requests to do interviews with various news outlets covering the Michael Jackson trial. I guess it's the Conrad Murray trial, but that's not as sexy sounding as the "Michael Jackson Death" trial that I've noticed a lot of news flacks have dubbed it. Up until today, I'd turned them all down. Primarily because I am not following the trial and therefore have no insight into it. In part, that's because I don't have that much time these days to... Read Full Story