The latest actor to go vampire? John. C Reilly! As you might expect, he’s a hammy vampire, not a sparkly one. See the preview for Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. (The film is based on a series of children’s books by English-born Irish author Darren O’Shaughnessy, who publishes under the name Darren Shan.)
Cirque Du Freak
Docudrama
Recommended Reading: Daniel Green on Harold Jaffe’s Induced Coma.
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A Call to Action
After our plea to lift The Bluest Eye‘s recent ban, The Nation has also come to Toni Morrison’s defense. “This pervasive sexual violence is reality for tens of thousands of students, a reality the Ohio Board of Ed is looking to whitewash with this latest censorship drive,” Peter Rothberg writes.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Haruf, Bakker, Moss, Peach, Prospectus
New in fiction this week: Benediction by Kent Haruf and Ten White Geese by past IMPAC winner Gerbrand Bakker. In non-fiction: Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss’s food industry exposé excerpted in the recent Times Magazine. From the other side of the food spectrum is Issue 6 of Lucky Peach. And it’s a big day for baseball fans: the 2013 Baseball Prospectus is here.
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Sidney Lumet Dies at 86
Sidney Lumet, director of 12 Angry Men, Serpico, and many other classic films, has died at 86.
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The End of a Myth
When Hanna Rosin published The End of Men this year, the book stirred up a lot of controversy (and a number of parodies, to boot). Now Stephanie Coontz, a historian, takes issue with Rosin’s premise — the “myth of male decline” — in the pages of The New York Times Book Review.
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Why So Socialist?
Have you seen the infamous image of Obama in Heath Ledger-style Joker makeup? (Image care of Bedlam Magazine). See the artist, unmasked, at the L.A. Times.
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