>Stanley Kubrick was incapable of making a dull movie but I am ambivalent about both "A Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket." The violence in Orange made me uneasy, as I guess it was supposed to. The first half of Full Metal Jacket was terrific, the second half less so IMO. He more than made up for it with "The Shining," the creepiest movie I have ever seen.
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>The other week I read a story in The New Yorker set in an unnamed South American city. It was part of their 20 Under 40 series. (Memorably parodied in the NY Times in an op-ed piece called 10 Under 10). The writer was Daniel Alarcon and the city seemed to be Buenos Aires. Comment?
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>http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/08/16/100816fi_fiction_alarcon
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>I was pleased that Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize in literature this week. Although he wrote more serious books, "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" had me hook, line, and sinker. A classic comic novel that doesn't just try to make you laugh. The scriptwriter's radio episodes become so convoluted he can't keep track of them himself and eventually kills them all off.


I loved SK movies but funny enough I only left a cinema by choice in one of his movies... 2001! (I guess I was tired and I was like 15 :)) and I agree that the first half of FMJ is better than the second, but great overall.

Unfortunately the story in the NY is too long for me to read now, I am writing while my wife walks the dog (and She just came back) so I just skimmed thru it and could not identify the city

I read MVLl when I was a teenager- early twenties, and I liked his books, in fact "La guerra del fin del mundo" is one of my favourites, I should re-read it (and I did not read his newer books), but I will say here that Borges deserved the Nobel prize 10 times more than Vargas Llosa :)