WITH A LITTLE SEX IN IT

The great Preston Sturges directed some of the wittiest films ever made. He reinvented comedy for Hollywood. This trailer is from a film retrospective of his work at Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and a reminder that "he's still the guy to beat."



I saw a brand new comedy this weekend. My girlfriend Wendy and I sat in the darkness, waiting for laughs. We sat there like Vladimir and Estragon, albeit with Diet Coke. Time slowed down to a near standstill. The movie was "Baby Mama" starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two very funny people. What happened? Hollywood has recently discovered the hilarity of pregnancy -- wanted, unwanted, too old, too young, with surrogate mothers -- and this is the latest in a half dozen. What ever happened to originality?



Preston Sturges was original -- and funny. If you want a good laugh, skip all the formulaic, market-tested comedies out there, and rent "Sullivan's Travels." It tells the story of a Hollywood director who is sick and tired of making mindless fluff. He dreams of moving among the real people, and making a great film of social significance -- and it's hilarious. By the way, the film he dreams of making is called "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou." Years later, the Coen Brothers honored Sturges in a film of this name. With a little sex in it.

TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR

Big Brother is not always watching. Take the case of Nicholas White. The New Yorker was working on the forty-third floor of the McGraw-Hill Building at Rockefeller Center, and decided to take a smoke break. He got on an elevator -- an elevator with a security camera -- and felt a jolt. The lights flashed off and on, and the elevator stopped. White pushed the intercom, and got no response. He pushed the emergency alarm bell. Nothing. Time passed.

He was stuck on the elevator for forty-one hours.

The City of Seattle just placed cameras in all its parks. Many cities in Europe and the States are already covered with security cameras. We've come to expect less privacy and more surveillance. Do all these cameras make us safer, or nudge us closer to George Orwell?

In the case of Nicholas White, a camera didn't seem to matter one way or the other. Watch his forty-one hour ordeal on this security camera video.

For the full story from the New Yorker, click HERE.