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KarinaGroucho

Karina Longworth is the film editor of the LA Weekly, as well as the co-founder of Cinematical and the former editor of SpoutBlog. She recently returned to her hometown of Los Angeles after twelve years split between various other cities, most recently Brooklyn. This blog, when she remembers to update it, will be mostly about that.

18 December 09
I wrote a little thing about my favorite film of the decade, Punch-Drunk Love, for Salon. I’m not sure if the above image is fan art or “officially” associated with the film (I found it on this French tribute page, which is an excellent source for P-DL reference imagery), but I think it’s a nice visualization of my point that the film is a fusion of cinema and painting. Salon only wanted 300 words, and after I turned it in I thought maybe I should write more on this theme, but I’m not sure if it would make sense to do so outside of an academic context, and I’m definitely not sure I want to go there. We’ll see. UPDATE: I should also note that this piece is part of a series, in which a wide-ranging group of filmmakers and writers consider their own favorite films of the decade. Some of my favorites include Mary Harron on Inland Empire, Andrew Grant on Synecdoche NY, and Michael Tully on The Real Cancun. That last piece begins with the sentence, “No, I’m not kidding.”

I wrote a little thing about my favorite film of the decade, Punch-Drunk Love, for Salon.

I’m not sure if the above image is fan art or “officially” associated with the film (I found it on this French tribute page, which is an excellent source for P-DL reference imagery), but I think it’s a nice visualization of my point that the film is a fusion of cinema and painting.

Salon only wanted 300 words, and after I turned it in I thought maybe I should write more on this theme, but I’m not sure if it would make sense to do so outside of an academic context, and I’m definitely not sure I want to go there. We’ll see.

UPDATE: I should also note that this piece is part of a series, in which a wide-ranging group of filmmakers and writers consider their own favorite films of the decade. Some of my favorites include Mary Harron on Inland Empire, Andrew Grant on Synecdoche NY, and Michael Tully on The Real Cancun. That last piece begins with the sentence, “No, I’m not kidding.”

17 December 09
Gossip Girl characters list the best of 2009

OF COURSE The Maid would rank high on Vanessa’s top ten, and OF COURSE Blair would love Wishful Drinking, but I can’t believe the revival of A Little Night Music wouldn’t have been a late inning contender for her top ten. I mean, it’s Sondheim + Angela Lansbury + CZ-OMG-J, so she would have known it was coming way before Scott Brown’s rave.

Am I just using a fictional character to talk about myself here? Whoops.

16 December 09
“ I think it’s actually interesting and important to note that President Obama’s chief speech writer is a 28-year-old guy. I mean there’s no way that “The Simpsons” hasn’t influenced the way that guy tells stories.
— A quote that somewhat seems to contradict the title of the story it’s from: Why The Simpsons No Longer Matters.
Posted: 4:33 PM
“ Group votes of any kind tend to cancel out radical options on either side in favor of the middle. If you are not surprised that neither Ron Paul nor Ralph Nader has ever been elected president, you should be equally unimpressed by the fact that The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air have taken the bulk of this year’s pre-Oscar honors.
— Why do all the awards honor the same movies?
Posted: 3:16 PM
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

I understand why *I* like this song — basically, because it sounds kind of like a semi-ironic cover of “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak — but I don’t understand why anybody else would like it.

15 December 09
The Rodarte line for Target is not yet in stores, but it *is* already on eBay. I am not the kind of girl who can buy clothes without trying them on, but oh god … want, want, want, want.

The Rodarte line for Target is not yet in stores, but it *is* already on eBay. I am not the kind of girl who can buy clothes without trying them on, but oh god … want, want, want, want.

14 December 09
“ Cameron, always high on his own bombast, harnesses that self-confidence into a deeply felt political critique wrapped in a theme park–ready special-effects extravaganza. Could anyone other than the man who made the highest-grossing film of all time get away with such a piously angry portrait of what he sees as the moral failings of U.S. war policy and the inept anti-intellectualism of both our conservatives and our military?
— I wrote about Avatar for Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men blog. I’ll be posting stuff there a couple of times a week through Oscar season.
Posted: 11:33 AM
Mark Bittman's recipe for cooking pasta like risotto has basically changed my life.
Posted: 11:10 AM
“ But the most potent eye imagery is only in the video for a few brief seconds, and in it we see a Lady Gaga we haven’t seen before. She’s in extreme close-up: no makeup, no masks, and no glasses. She stares directly into the camera and then away with a plaintive look. She isn’t playing; a tear rolls down her face. Is this the real her? Have we reached peak Gaga?
— From Oscar Moralde’s exhaustive study of the music videos of Lady Gaga, at The House Next Door.
12 December 09
Somehow, I only managed to take one photo on my phone over 10 days in LA. This is the sad little bench marking the makeshift bus stop at Fryman and Laurel Canyon.

Somehow, I only managed to take one photo on my phone over 10 days in LA. This is the sad little bench marking the makeshift bus stop at Fryman and Laurel Canyon.

Themed by Hunson. Originally by Josh