The third season of HBO’s Big Love debuted the other night, which reminded me of this interview I did a few years ago with Chloe Sevigny (or Chloë Sevigny, if you’re a fan of diacritical marks). I must have interviewed hundreds of people over the years; only a few have ever said “no comment.” This […]

posted 21 January 2009 in Archives, Articles. 2 comments

Another year goes by, and Philip Seymour Hoffman keeps kicking ass and being the best thing in whatever movie he appears in. Right now, you can check him out in either Synedoche, New York or Doubt (I’ve seen the former, not the latter, but they both seem to be unwieldy first-time directorial efforts from well-regarded […]

posted 15 December 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the storied Troubadour nightclub in Hollywood to see the latest installment of “In the Attic,” the series of acoustic showcases starring Pete Townshend (on his days off from the Who’s world tour) and organized by his girlfriend Rachel Fuller. I interviewed the two of them (plus Zooey Deschanel […]

posted 1 December 2008 in Articles, Outside. 2 comments

As promised last month, I’ve added another one of my Chris Rock interviews to the archives. This one’s from 2005, when he was promoting Madagascar and The Longest Yard. You might not care about either of those movies, or Rock’s ruminations on Jude Law and Sean Penn after hosting the Oscars, but you should check […]

posted 17 November 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

The sets of some TV shows are Potemkin villages, just realistic enough to pass muster with the cameras on one side. Others are incredibly detailed simulacra: the most impressive ever, for my money, was the sprawling installation at Cinnecitta Studios for the HBO show Rome (more on which some other time soon). When I visited […]

posted 3 November 2008 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet

Writing about TV, I see a lot of pilot episodes. They’re not the best way to judge a new show, but they’re all we’ve got. Just two years ago, I watched the pilots for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock; I thought the Aaron Sorkin drama was sharp and witty, while the […]

posted 27 October 2008 in Archives, Articles. 2 comments

Interviewing comics can be tricky: some fall back on canned schtick, while others are self-consciously dour offstage. But I’ve interviewed Chris Rock three times in the last five years and he’s never disappointed. Rock’s not a rat-a-tat joke machine; he’s always seemed more interested in answering my questions thoughtfully. He just says incredibly funny things […]

posted 22 October 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

I haven’t written many articles that have gotten a more intense response than this 2004 profile of Macaulay Culkin. Which surprised me at first, but makes sense upon further reflection–Culkin was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, not that long ago, and then he pretty much vanished off the radar. Not much […]

posted 20 October 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Apparently Dennis Hopper is starring in the new TV adaptation of Crash, which holds no interest for me, since it’s an adaptation of the bad Paul Haggis movie from 2004. (An adaptation of the Cronenberg/Ballard movie from 1996 might be equally awkward, but at least it would be unlike anything else on TV.) But the […]

posted 15 October 2008 in Articles. 2 comments

Since there’s a new season of The Sarah Silverman Program starting tonight, it seemed like a good time for me to put an extended version of my 2002 interview with Silverman up in the archives. A few notes: 1. Silverman kept doing the Jesus Is Magic jokes for many years–one of the things I liked […]

posted 8 October 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet