Gotham-Set Ego Implosion (+ Weekly Crap)

Okay, it's a fat day late, but still: Elvis Mitchell has resigned from his New York Times position, allegedly because the exponentially-superior A.O. Scott was named lead film cricket over him. Oh well. I've never been much of a fan of Mitchell's cutesey-pie, appeal-to-everyone prose style, while Scott never ceases to amaze. The question is: now what to do with this Stephen Holden chap? My dream is that MD'A, newly resigned/fired from Time Out NY, will be his replacement. Alas, he wants to finally become an auteur, meaning that the only way we can read his eloquent, brainy prose is to leaf through copies of Esquire while at Barnes and Noble. Should he -- assuming the Times wants him at all -- go after a career he only half-wants or enter into the maelstrom that is toiling in the film industry? (Worked for Skander, after all.) A moral connundrum, this.

Meanwhile, my own half-wanted career work is up in the latest issue of the Philadelphia Weekly. (The name-switcheroo -- to PW -- hasn't caught on with me yet.) Reviews of the largely excellent, if goofily-titled, Buddhist parable Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, Lost Boys of Sudan, and the re-issue of Life of Brian are up for grabs. Unless my memory is failing me, this is the first time -- ever? -- where all my reviews have been glowingly positive. But at least I kept the ire up in my usual Repertory column. This week, I dig into The Emperor Jones, belittle Zorba the Greek, make light sport of those who would flock to a Sing-a-Long presentation of The Sound of Music, give Mervyn LeRoy a backhanded compliment for his work on The Bad Seed, and, finally, describe Seabiscuit as "sickening." All that, and a knock on the endless ubiquitiousness of Moby. I'm but a notch below the rampant mean-spiritedness of gossip columnist Jessica Pressler, I tell ya.