James Wolcott
James Wolcott
James Wolcottis an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He also writes a blog...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth10 December 1952
CountryUnited States of America
team book moon
And what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of 'The Book of Mormon,' the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central's 'South Park,' are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.
running team character
Feature-length film comedy is harder to pull off than the episodic sitcom - it doesn't have the same factory machinery up and running, teams of writers putting familiar characters through permutations - but that doesn't explain the widening quality gap that makes movie humor look like a genetic defective.
party reality tea
The days when the words Hollywood actor framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.
mistake writing tears
One of the mistakes they often make is the designers over-accessorize or over-elaborate. So you realize: this would work if they removed X and Y. And actually, that's the sort of thing that translates into writing, because a lot of the time you realize, I feel I need to add something here but actually what I need to do is subtract. And then there's always the psychodrama and the tears and the rage and the feuds.
bill clinton flaming itself monica people remained upright whipping
The Beltway media went into caroming-off-the-walls hysterics over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, whipping itself into a flaming casserole even as Clinton's standing with the American people remained upright and firm, so to speak.
avoid aware cite forced spare
I try to avoid Politico to spare myself psoriasis of the brain but so many journalists cite it that I'm forced to be aware of it no matter how big a moat I build.
ballet fans highbrow horror itself love signifies whom
Slashing its way to the finish line, 'Black Swan' is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.
birdie brain breakfast knowing name notebook pops rack remember sitting somehow sure
You're sitting there having breakfast at the St. Regis with Scooter Aspen, buttering each other's toast, and somehow the name 'Valerie Flame' pops up in your notebook without you knowing how it got there! It's your handwriting, sure enough, but rack your brain much as you will, you just can't remember which little birdie tweeted that name into your ear.
burning came fully sanity virtues
It was with 9/11 that I came to fully appreciate and embrace NPR's irreplaceability as a sanity preserver, its unique virtues as first responder on the burning scene.
america questions stuck torment
Many questions torment America in its dark night of the soul, questions more urgently pressing, and yet it must be asked: How did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable?
behind longer prevailing seems sets zeitgeist
If Broadway no longer seems behind the times or ahead of the times, it may be because there are no 'times' anymore, no prevailing Zeitgeist that sets the fashion, pace, and prevailing look.
broad fraction kevin physical pick technique tickle
If you were to hold me down and tickle me to pick my favorite 'plus-comic,' it would have to be Kevin James, a broad physical pratfaller capable of deadpan underplay, a technique honed from years of reaction-shot close-ups on TV, where every teeny fraction of a squint registers.
republican restless toy
In the Tea Party era, it is the restless conservative Republican who has become passion's plaything, the toy of impetuous romance, an erotomania only intensified by the lusting for an upstart savior.
carrying impress literary slate strangers trying
How can I impress strangers with the gem-like flame of my literary passion if it's a digital slate I'm carrying around, trying not to get it all thumbprinty?