October 2009 - The American Mag

The Promised Land

Despite social intolerance, Italy can be a haven for a true Dog Person's Dog.

Memes are all around — just ask the author, a self-styled 'quotator' (you heard it first).

Erik Gandini's rough-edge documentary on the ascent of Berlusconi-era TV is a bitter pill.

If Rome refuses to yield a watch battery, be satisfied with a pretty penis instead.

Vincent Gallo's best movie was his first, because its heart is close to home.

A centerpiece of 60s counterculture, this is the movie that first put Jack Nicholson in the limelight.

Dustin Hoffman and John Voight give this overbaked drama a deep kind of soul.

Tad Friend's nasty remembrance in an exercise in thoughtless offensiveness.

Hoffmann's hard-to-find Rome homage makes eternal seem like a dirty word.

Fleur Jaeggy's gem about boarding school life is pale and affirming.

Things I like: cars, tires, wheels, radiation, fireflies. Please do not be a Used Man. Bring kit.