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The film is a mesmerizing spectacle, precisely because it doesn’t seem to obey many of the rules of either populist or “serious” cinema of this current era. Though the story is full of the kind of material habitually milked for melodrama—betrayals, moral crises, deaths—it almost always refuses to take easy advantage of these opportunities. In refusing to do so, what might seem on the surface a simple tale of espionage and its consequences becomes something altogether else: something imbued with a deliberately stiffer, more constrained poetry, one that doesn’t imagine that truth, freedom, wild horses, and the wind always flow together. One in which, maybe, the fewer words a man says and the less his face gives away, the better he describes the box that surrounds and imprisons him.

For your consideration: the narrative of a poor schmuck forced to interview Robert De Niro, the story of a journalist who, prevailing against all odds, still manages to kiss some serious ass. The Good Shepherd? Not quite so good as A Bronx Tale, which we assume is much better, though we’ve never bothered to see it.

We’re also pretty sure that “stiff” and “constrained” poetry is not “good” poetry. Chris Heath seems to be a professional writer, not a college freshman groping for a thesaurus at crunch-time, so we assume that if Mr. Heath had actually seen a “good” film, his professional vocabulary would have instantaneously supplied him with a score of far better qualifiers: “understated,” “stark," "subtle," "minimalist," "good," etc.

Better luck next time, Bobbo!

AND NOW, 972 WORDS FROM ROBERT DE NIRO [GQ]

Cultural critic = bullshit artist. It's an equation that even empirically-challenged Pauline Kael readers can wrap their McLuhan-addled minds around, and perhaps none better than Boston Globe writer James Parker. He tackled the aesthetics of karoke just in time for the New Year, and with high-minded results. Hilarity ensues:

The heart of the karaoke performer swells: Into this vacancy he must project his beautiful essence, his soul. He -- or she (karaoke knows no gender) -- may be emboldened or confused by alcohol; wild with a private grief; or, worst of all, suffering from a genuine desire to excel before his peers. Regardless, in the performance that ensues, something will be brought to light.

We're pretty sure that Parker shouldn't get paid to publish this, and certainly not by a supposedly Serious Newspaper; but he gives us hope. Also a desire to get fucked up and belt out "Livin' on a Prayer." You know, in public, for once. The inspired may wish to brush up on their karaoke etiquette here.

'This One Goes Out...' [Boston Globe]
Picking the Right Karaoke Song - The Fine Art [Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane]

• Learn how to make tofu, in Polish, in your underwear, and in a very cold room, apparently. [KUCHARECZKA, via SuperVegan]
• We love Brazil: or rather, we are endlessly amused by Brazil. And we have already watched this video 13 times. [Boingboing]
• Monty Python are smarter than you are. [Figures of Speech Served Fresh]
• Last night, we watched the Godfather for what was probably the umptwenieth time. [Wikipedia]
• Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer is a liar. Though, in her defense, Ronald Roberts is a total douchebag. [NY Times]
• Anal sex among heterosexual couples is, evidently, the same thing as getting married, buying your first home. [New York]
• Ron Artest is keeping a diary. [Hip Hop Game]

We had high expectations for The Knights of Prosperity, or at least we did when it was still called Let's Rob Mick Jagger, but last night's debut episode was a huge let down. I mean, this is Donal Logue, the man who played Jimmy the Cab Driver on those great MTV adverts, but the only consistent laughs last night came from jokes delivered by, and I'm not kidding here, Mick Jagger.

Nevertheless, we're willing to give the show a few weeks before we jump ship, mostly because we really want to like this show. Logue can be very good (we remember liking The Tao of Steve quite a bit when we saw it); and, plus, the first episode of 30 Rock was pretty crap, too, and look how that turned out. Maybe Knights, once it gets all this unfunny exposition out of the way, will be a good television show. But the question is: will it last that long? Ratings were terrible (fourth-place), and ABC doesn't seem to be giving it a fraction of the publicity and support that NBC has given to their glorious comedic star-child, Tina Fey.

Our fingers are crossed.

• The Knights of Prosperity Homepage [ABC.com]
• Male Misery Just Loves Female Company [NY Times]
• An Interview with the Creators of The Knights Of Prosperity [The Sound of Young America]
• Win Knights of Prosperity Tee Shirts!! [TSOYA]
• Jimmy the Cab Driver Appreciates Alanis Morrissette [YouTube]

We can't really be bothered with compiling any sort of best-of-oh-six missive, scrambling, as we are, to solve our massive design problems (i.e. our complete lack of design). In the meantime, here are some of our favorite best-of lists from around the internets.

• The year in remixes, starring DFA, Rub 'n' Tug, Erol Alkan, Chicken Lips. [Yer Mam!]
  
• The year in beef, by The Shit's East Coast Editor (and scion of a prominent family of Jewish-Texan cattle ranchers), Jacobris Gonnell Cohen. [The Crimson]
  
• We can't wait to read Amy Hempel's Collected Stories; we are also looking forward to returning Absurdistan to the library entirely unread. [NYT Book Review]
  
• Jason Kottke, internet demigod, gives us the year in links. We very much agree with Kottke's assertion that his list is like the New York Times' famous "year in ideas" list, but more awesome. [Kottke]
  
• PODCAST: The NYC hipsterati's most favorite dancefloor discobombs, 2006 Edition!! [Slap you in public!]
  
• We never like Pitchfork's best-fifty-albums marathoner - it's way too Pitchforkian for our tastes - but it often serves as a good benchmark for what people were talking about in the past year. The Fork's top-hunnerd-songs shindig, on the other hand, is off-the-chain! [Pitchfork]

We woke up feeling romantic, and so did the internets. Get a head start on Valentine's Day with this attractive compendium of love-writing, sure to get you in the mood.

• Love made boring. The term "shrink" takes on new, revelatory meaning. [Psychology Today]
  
• Protection for your G-Unit. The dude can get shot three times and live; one wonders what the condom can endure. [Stereogum]
  
• Said the Gramophone delivers a creepy, TMI lecture on the birds and the bees. Should lady bloggers worry about StG STDs? [Said the Gramophone]
  
• Love hurts, especially when daddy beats mommy, daddy makes bank as one of the NBA's best true point guards, and mommy is craaaazy paranoid. (But who can blame her?) [True Hoop]

We here at The Shit could not get enough of Arrested Development during its too-short three-season run. Neither could we get enough of Michael Cera's brilliant and understated performance as George Michael, the show's awkward emotional center; so, naturally, we are very glad we found this on YouTube. "Impossible Is the Opposite of Possible" is Cera's tongue-in-cheek parody of über-douche Aleksey Vayner's "video resume," brought to the attention of the internets last year by Gawker.

This video has already been splashed all over the web, but we thought we'd take the opportunity to link to a wonderful interview with Michael Cera, which was conducted sometime during Arrested Development's final season. It's a nice piece, which we recommend you take a look at; Cera is obviously an intelligent and interesting young man, and he's funnier than most people twice his age. Though, to be fair, most of them aren't professional comedians.

• Impossible Is the Opposite of Possible [YouTube]
• Michael Cera Interview [Brian M. Palmer]
• Watch Cera's "Impossible Is the Opposite of Possible" and Vayner's "Impossible Is Nothing" Side-by-Side [Best Week Ever]

• David Wu, who represents our district, says, "Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war." We are very frightened, but also, strangely, in awe. [OregonLive]
• A weird, wonderful man has died. [NY Times]
• A roundup of BBC reporting on hamsters. [Making Light, via Boing Boing]
• Also, Nazi Raccoons. [Making Light]
• We think David Koechner is very funny; we recently watched Thank You For Smoking, which reminded us that we think this. [TSOYA]

This may sound callous, but we're ecstatic about ECM recording artist and starting Portland Trail Blazers point guard Jarrett Jack getting in a car crash. Yes, ecstatic. Why? Because this is a new kind of automotive accident for Portland's only major professional sports franchise worth caring about that we care about:

Jarrett Jack, the team's starting point guard and emotional leader, drove a car into a parked semi-truck outside of the team's practice facility in Tualatin as he arrived at the team's shootaround. Jack suffered a concussion and scrapes to his forehead when he hit the windshield.

See? That's great news. No drugs involved! No armed speed racing à la Road Rash 3! No pit bulls! Just a professional athlete with superior reflexes and hand-eye coordination driving his car into a parked vehicle the size of a barn (hmmm...). What's more, we get a W the night of the accident. This is just what a team formerly known as the Jail Blazers needs. So we salute you, Jarrett Jack, vibraphonist, terrible driver, and "emotional leader" of our benighted Blazers.

Oh God.

Victory is No Accident [OregonLive] (GET IT?)

Introducing a semi-occasional feature, in which we examine the week in beef.

Whilst out and about today, we overheard actual middle-aged white people discussing the Rosie/Trump beef. And that got us thinking. For these are divisive, contentious times that pit neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, and, every so often, brother against neighbor. Also, there's hella MySpace hacking.

• It turns out Jim Jones' potshots at Hova are not to go unavenged; it's just that Jay-Z isn't going to do the dirty work. Recently, Rocafella puppy Tru-Life was sicced on the Diplomats, leading to a retaliatory and hilarious MySpace hacking. Apparently, Freekey's been taking HTML nights at CCNY. Good luck finding screenshots; most have been taken down. [Still Listen]
• The Game, desperate to start beef with anyone who will pay him attention, has announced that he would kick David Beckham's ass. This a week after he stated that he could out-wrestle WWE's The Game, who supposed stole the rapper's name. Basically, if you engage in some kind of competitive activity, The Game will challenge you. Here's hoping Garry Kasparov's next on his beef list. [The Guardian]

Until next time. Dipset bitch.

We know some people love to hate them – namely us, and we do it quite a lot – but there are times when we actually like Pitchfork. We read them mostly for news and track reviews, which is why we’re very sad that the Forknerds have demolished the track reviews section of their website and put up a ramshackle sort of podcast in its place. The Pitchdorks are usually at their worst when its comes to album reviews – they always seem to use the space for nerdy rock-crit ego-trips or, if they’re feeling particularly drunk, for harebrained attempts at cultural criticism – but they aren't so bad when they tackle music song-by-song. In the track reviews, good songs are treated succinctly and are explored in a narrower, more sensible context, and they have a lot of fun with the shitty ones. Actually, we are amazed they didn’t get rid of the track reviews rubric any sooner.

Forkcast [Pitchfork]

Over at The Onion A.V. Club Blog, they're soliciting questions for an upcoming feature in which Miss Silverman will be resolving all of your most bothersome concerns and uncertainties about love and, we hope, the etiquette of eskimo gangbangs. One of our favorites would have to be this sincere and anonymous inquiry:

Like most women, my girlfriend is very self-conscious about her body. When we "do it," she insists on turning the lights out. I love her body and want to actually see it, but no amount of reassurance or pleading on my part will change her mind. How do I convince her to leave the lights on?

tie her up, then turn the lights back on

How drunk do you have to get yourself to have sex with Jimmy Kimmel?

Ask Sarah Silverman About Love And Sex (Seriously!) [A.V. Club Blog]

Lately all of our time has been tied up in efforts to redesign our website, and, last night, while taking a break from alternatively studying CSS/XHTML textbooks and banging our head against the wall, we decided to assemble our blogroll. We've got links like gangbusters -- celebs, mp3s, movies, the funny haha, and lots of other coolness -- but we could not for the life of us find any good Portland blogs.

Seriously, where are they? The Portland Mercury, which in its newsstand edition has been boring us to death of late -- there is only so much of their brand of "journalism" that we can take -- has a blog, and it's quite good. The blogosphere seems to be the perfect place for their bizarre maneuvers against good taste and Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Other than that, we've got nothing. One of our favorite Portland blogs is Cowboyz 'n' Poodles, written by former Mercury escritora Julianne Shepherd; but it doesn't actually count, because she moved to New York like two years back.

So we've got nothing. At this point, we'd link to halfway-decent blogs by cool-looking people. Hell, we'd even link to Flickr. Or LiveJournal. Anything. We're desperate; we love Portland, and we want to know that Portlanders are out there right now tearing it up on the bloggernets. Please, send us your links.