indispensable, exhaustively researched http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=tellmewhy%20%20%20The%20First%2024%20Months%20of%20a%20New%20York%20Design%20Company&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoMore depressing than (being in the company of) Dostoyevsky http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Botany%20of%20Desire%20by%20Michael%20Pollan&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoWhat do apples, potatoes, marijuana, and tulips? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=New%20York%20Minute&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=Go... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Blind%20Shaft&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoRead boring articles on post-millenial capitalism in The Economist or you can watch this movie! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Bulletproof%20Monk&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=Go... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Fancies%20and%20Goodnights%20by%20John%20Collier&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoDon't let Michael Chabon's patronizing endorsement ruin yet another perfectly reasonable reading experience! Buy this now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Close%20Up%20by%20Abbas%20Kiarostami&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoAlong with Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia, a seminal document of the LA punk scene, circa 1982. WHAT, YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Close%20Up%20by%20Abbas%20Kiarostami&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoAlong with Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia, a seminal document of the LA punk scene, circa 1982. WHAT, YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Zatoichi%20Versus%20the%20Chess%20Master&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoWhat's next? Zatoichi versus the Insurance Claims Adjuster? We can only hope! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Home%20Movie&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoMark Borchard is nowhere to be found in this movie, save the liner notes. For SHAME! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Lord%20of%20the%20Rings&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoWatching a great tennis match can be exhilarating but we don't call it an artistic masterpiece, unless the players are Truffaut and Fritz Lang, and the ball boy is Kubrick. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Eternal%20Sunshine%20of%20the%20Spotless%20Mind&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoThe film is a metaphysical chase movie -- the villain we flee from is the gentrification of Jim Carrey. You have been warned, Will Farell. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Spiderman%202&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoSpiderman 2 is the most immoral movie I've seen this year. Or is that amoral? Wait, is one supposed to be like... "I don't care if I'm a prick" and the other like, "I do care, but I'm a prick anyway?" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Tsai%20Ming%20Liang&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoHis characters seem like strangers even to themselves not necessarily because they're alienated, but because we have access to their bodies, rather than their selves. We are omniscient rather than intimate, the distinction blurred by prescription-strength deodorant! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=House%20of%20Flying%20Daggers&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoWe never learn the outcome of this climatic fight scene and leave unsure who are the ambushers and who are the ambushees. Any subplot larger than the lovers is left astray, unleashed and elliptical, so that the entire sociopolitical world of House of Flying Daggers is a decoy... A decoy for Fab 5 Freddy beat down! Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Sideways&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoSatire is the narrative of critique, but its critique is like Hulk Hogan telling us he could knock out Andre the Giant. This is something Hulk could never do without Andre's express consent; he ways 720 pounds! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Amor%20es%20Perros&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoIt would be unfair to label this a Mexican Pulp Fiction but then again, this is an unfair world we live in. It's got dog fights, yo! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Playing%20Right%20Field%20A%20Jew%20Grows%20in%20Greenwich%20by%20George%20Tabb&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoThe jacket says Tabb is a "punk rock David Sedaris" but don't let that stop you from reading hilarious tales of perpetual beatings and anti-semitism. Sure to replace "Diary of Anne Frank" as mandatory reading. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Exegesis%20by%20Astro%20Teller&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoThis guy's dad is Manhattan Project luminary Edward Teller!!!!! Plus, he is 50 times better a writer than Martin Amis. Damning with faint praise, are we? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/104-7982726-9671130?keyword=Blowing%20My%20Cover%20%20My%20Life%20as%20a%20CIA%20Spy%20by%20Lindsay%20Moran&mode=blended&tag=reportage-20&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&Submit=GoThe psych screens described here are identical to the ones administered to Robert McNamara during the 50s. I'm not making this up.