The Friday Article Roundup
Watching The Village is nice, but is nice the same is good?
Welcome to the Friday Article Roundup, a weekly collection and discussion of great pop culture articles from around the Internet.
This week we have:
Special thanks to Bridgett and Casper for contributing this week. If you see a pop culture article to share for next week’s FAR, email the link to ploughmanplods [at] gmail. You’re invited to post articles from the past week in the comments below for discussion, and Have a Happy Friday!
Defector‘s Nicholas Russell revisits the 2004 thriller The Village and finds new things awaiting in its woods:
Even now, amidst a second wind in his career, itโs a mistake to hang too much anticipation or importance on Shyamalanโs twists. They are integral to many of his films, but they arenโt the point. For one thing, the secret that Ebert derides inย The Villageย is unlike any in the filmmakerโs other work. Itโs one deliberately kept out of sight, a lie fabricated by the founders of the community that, like the American obsession with maintaining freedom at the cost of someone elseโs liberty, papers over an inability to face reality as it is. For another, like any good narrative that stands up to the scrutiny of multiple viewings, to know whatโs actually going on inย The Villageย is to watch an entirely different, and in this case, more absurd, more disturbing and melancholic movie.ย
In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lauren Eriks Cline looks back at the shifting serialization tactics of Lost:
Whenย Lostย first aired, much of the buzz it generatedโand much of the criticism it attracted with its divisive series finaleโresulted from audiencesโ attachment to the proleptic narrative mode. Viewers were drawn to the prospect of an apparently incomprehensible set of contradictions that might be resolved through careful detective work. But over its six seasons,ย Lostย adapted to a series of developments in its conditions of storytellingโa change in creative direction, a studio renegotiation, and ongoing US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraqโthat shifted the showโs focus away from planting clues and toward staging the slower, more cyclical process of grief. As early as the first season, and to an increasing degree,ย Lostย was less interested in resolving the paradoxes it introduced than in renewing and expanding their resonance.
Samantha Bergeson at Indiewire reports on the response by Ryan Reynolds on his inclusion in a roundtable of actors:
โAnd yes I am Deadpool. BUT I will take a second and speak up in defense of comedy. Dramatic work is difficult. And weโre also meant to SEE itโs difficult which is one of the reasons it feels visceral and effective. Comedy is also very difficult. But has an added dimension in that itโs meant to look and feel effortless.โ Reynolds continued, โYou intentionally hide the stitching and unstitching. I think both disciplines are beautiful. And both work beautifully together. Comedy and drama subsist on tension.ย Both thrive when subverting expectation. Both thrive backstopped by real emotion. And both are deeply subjective.โ He concluded, โYour favorite comedy might be โAnchorman.โ Mine might be Lars Von Trierโs โMelancholia.’โ
At Slate, Laura Marshall recounts seeing her own assault fictionalized on Law & Order: SVU [CW: discussion of sexual assault]:
As the episode progressed, I watched Sarah walk through a messy crime scene and wonder aloud why her apartment had been trashed by CSI, like I had; put on a performative face to fulfill her commitments, like I had; kiss her older boyfriend who was a musician and piano instructor, just like mine was; and reassure her concerned out-of-town parents who knew the big city would commit some sort of evil eventually, also like mine had. I still tried to convince myself that this was coincidental. But then Sarah went to have a drink at her regular barโa scene filmed in theย actualย bar I frequented with my classmates after rehearsals that ran late into the night. Then everyone elseโsย SVUย became myย Black Mirror.
For Tedium, Ernie Smith looks into the strange life – and possible imminent death – of the MPAA’s “G” rating:
But less discussed is the G-rated system, which initially represented films that in the Hays Code era would have gone through without changes. But as the system began to firm up, that standard eventually evolved into a self-selecting system, where essentially โG-ratedโ means the film is specifically for kids, rather than just being safe for everyone. To highlight how dramatic the change was, itโs worth noting that one early film to receive the G rating wasย 2001: A Space Odyssey, a Stanley Kubrick film that, if released today, would have most certainly been a PG-13 title. But because norms had not been formalized around MPAA ratings, it led to wiggle room that treated the iconic film as one safe for 8-year-olds to consume.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
C. D. Ploughmanโs ProfileTags for this article
More articles by C. D. Ploughman
The life and career of a man who found the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The Friday Article Roundup
An assembly line of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
Lunch Links
State of the art special effects, little attention paid to plot - what's changed over the past 120 years?
And It is a material presenter of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
The Friday Article Roundup
A catty roundup of great pop culture writing from the past week.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Heretic
A good time at the movies – this reminded me of The Menu in its rather unsophisticated intellectual ideas filtered through a locked-room thriller, except the filmmaking and storytelling is vastly more improved and the goofy ideas are in service to the thrills rather than bland vegetables served in a thriller sauce. I love that the movie doesnโt tip its hand until almost near the end, finally fully revealing the agenda of Hugh Grantโs villain after very carefully laying pieces of it out.
SPOILERS BELOW
A big moment when the movie fully won me over was when the apparent heroine of the piece – the smarter, savvier, more worldly girl – gets her throat cut right when she seems to be sticking it to the villain; this undercuts the philosophy in service of upping the tension, and ends up serving the philosophy when the less savvy heroine is forced to think on her feet. If thereโs a โmoralโ to the story, itโs that the heroine saves herself more through intuition and trusting her gut than outright reason.
(It strikes me as a reversal of the irritating twist in the final third of Glass Onion)
I was deeply irritated, though, that the movie cinematically softened the horror of the situation; there was precisely one jump scare in the whole thing, and this actually could have used a few more. The first twenty minutes especially contain the exact same gag over and over where you think something horrible is going to happen, only for it to be innocent.
Admittedly that did make me hope the movie was going to have a twist that everything was above-board and he was just really eccentric; Hugh Grant is amazing at drawing on his considerable charisma and throwing in these gaps where his contempt and patience were showing through, and the filmmaking backed him up. The opening alone is an intense sequence of the heroines immediately clicking that something funky is happening and trying to politely get out of there.
Live music — “To everyone grabbing my dick … thank you,” David Yow told us at the Jesus Lizard show last night. And yes, he was speaking to me — a non-exhaustive list of David Yow Body Parts touched by myself last night includes, groin, ass, leg, foot, forearm and sweaty hairy belly. It is fucking insane how good these guys are 40 years along and even more fucking insane that Yow is launching himself into the crowd half a dozen times a night (I suppose this is restraint from the band’s heyday, where he rarely stayed on stage), where is the Men’s Health profile of him to determine how the hell he is still alive. I feel beat just after being in the audience, snapping my neck headbanging — I am ready to make the call that not only is the band America’s Led Zeppelin, they are better than Zeppelin. Mac McNeilly beat the absolute shit out of his drums, Duane Dennison dropped noise and riffs and that evil fucking slide on “Nub,” and David Wm. Sims locked down the bass while looking like Hans Landa as Walter Peck, an evil corporate villain who you would absolutely not want to fuck with. They played for the better part of 90 minutes, the old stuff sounded great (“Then Comes Dudley” in particular was god-like) and the new stuff also slayed. Possibly the best show of the year, they are a tad pricey these days but deserve it and if they are anywhere remotely close to you, they are not optional.
Evil Does Not Exist — this opens with a lengthy shot that will recur, the camera gliding through a forest pointed directly up through the trees to the sky, a seemingly calm image that grows more unsettling as the soundtrack’sย discord increases. But the plot gets going with a long public meeting, as two PR flacks propose a glamping outpost in the small town by these woods, it is grimly funny to watch their bullshit and the townspeople push back on it, Wiseman has been thrown up as a comparison and this is indeed porn to me on the level of his City Hall, tracking power struggles in what is essentially a Conservation Commission meeting. Great shit that sets up the flacks trying to deal with (and do so honestly, they are revealed to be fairly decent folks) the lead, a stoic single dad (Hitoshi Omika is Bronsonian in compressedย power and demeanor) as he goes about his day. And then the ending comes and it is the opposite of that public meeting and its talk and agendas and logic and planning. Ryusuke Hamaguchi shoots something familiar from many a back yard as a blank terror, incomprehensible in its menace, and the final images are even less comprehensible. While it may be a Boss Baby move to compare this to Princess Mononoke it is unavoidable, especially considering the subject of the folk horror turn at the end; Mononoke is about balance and its impossibility and says everyone has their reasons, I think Hamaguchi is saying there is no reason at all. What got me about those recurring tree shots after a while is how beyond the bare branches and thin needles the sky is not blue or cloudy but a dead dull white, a void behind the known. And this leads to another work about nature, take it away Herman Melville:
“When we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly huesโevery stately or lovely emblazoningโthe sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tingeโpondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.”
More fun stuff from the show:
Yow walks onstage and announces “I don’t know if you can see this, but I peed a little.” On Yow’s second or third trip crowdsurfingย above us, the guy next to me cracked (or maybe warned) “Yow’s peeing again.”ย
“This is the best song anybody ever wrote.” And they launched into “Monkey Trick,” so Yow was right! Some jerkoff audience member stage dived and knocked Sims’ bass, pulling him out of the song and he was PISSED, giving the dude the finger and glaring at him; the same dude was crowdsurfing near Sims later in the show and you could see him watching, ready to punt the dipshit into the next county.
I stayed out of the pit, which got very mean during “Monkey Trick,” except when Yow jumped into the crowd, after we let him down (literally) at the Flipper show some years back I wanted to make sure he didn’t get dropped. There were a few near moments! And one hilarious bit where we shoved him over to the other side of the crowd and the guy next to me turned around to smile at his friends; in a perfect horror movie shot I could see Yow’s body reverse course and flop in our direction while the guy was completely unaware, until I yelled “HE’S COMING BACK!”ย
“I just did 120 pushups, fuck you and your family.” Never, ever change Yow (and he actually did do at least 10 of those pushups)
Hell yeah to all of this. Also weirdly the Jesus and Mary Chain played here last night (I didn’t go), are these bands attempting to capitalise on the festive season or what?
The Jesus Lizard at least have a new album out, and it fucking rips, the middle section in particular is straight fire that could’ve been on Liar, so they have that to tour behind. No festive music though!
Jesus and Mary Chain had a new album out earlier this year too, I think (although I was hearing the first single from it on the radio last year).
I donโt remember now if I recommended Evil Does Not Exist to you, but how could I not have with that glorious public meeting scene? The whole movieโs so fantastic in its lengthy grounded sections (this is my third Hamaguchi and Iโve never been so much on his wavelength) that the shock of the ending actually pissed me off a bit. To continue the Miyazaki comparison, I was ready for Totoro mode. Even more so, I was convinced I was seeing another Local Hero and had the fate of our two city slickers figured out. Hamaguci clearly doesnโt see the world that way, and now that Iโm calmed down a bit, I can give the guy the space heโs earned for that ending. Iโd need another go to be fully onboard, though.
This is my first Hamaguchi (there will be more) and I knew going in the ending was a huge swerve, so I was prepared on that level if not for what actually happens. And even beyond my own sicko tendencies, that public meeting is so fucking good! Hamaguchi has a phenomenal eye for the subtle shifting power dynamics involved, how one demand can foreclose others (paid off beautifully in that Zoom meeting scene, which has its own shifting dynamics, when the CEO focuses on the caretaker at the expense of the whole “shit in the water supply” issue) and of course how obfuscation and lack of promise can be wielded. So it’s incredibly ballsy to have such a thorough understanding of this stuff and then chuck it all out the window, SPOILER doesn’t care.
And something I vaguely picked up on while watching but got codified by reading Justin Chang’s review — Omika is sort of a dick to our would-be Local Heroes, in particular the dude. The bumming of a cigarette in particular is marvelous passive-aggression. (And I love the way the dude fucks up in his praise at the restaurant, and the semi-snobbery, justified, that he gets in response.) So much good stuff here.
If you haven’t seen A Bread Factory already, with it’s numerous public meetings, its a must-see.
I remember hearing about that one, it is on the list!
Grabbing Dave Yow’s dick, I feel like your life is complete now.
The most-grabbed dick in rock! I’m part of a storied history.
Now what about Iggy Pop?
OK, Most-Grabbed Dick In Rock (In-Concert Division) — I think Yow has the edge based on number of shows, if not in general lifestyle activities.
Does it count when the grab is performed on oneself, ala Michael Jackson?
Wooooooo live grabbing!!
The Americanization of Emily – At one level, the romance between American naval officer James Garner and sad British WAAC Julie Andrews just before D-Day. But at two or three other levels, an anti-war satire about the virtue of being a coward, and about how maybe having any virtue at all is why people fight wars. Garner is his usual excellent self, Andrews is good if a bit overwhelming by the movie, and James Coburn gives what could be called two different (if very good) performances as the mild mannered aide de camp we see in the first hour becomes manic and gung ho out of the blue in the second. The script by Paddy Chayefsky, and full of great speeches and interesting ideas and nerve – antiwar stories about “the good war” are not that rare, but one about D-Day is practically blasphemous – but the romance part of the film and the satire don’t really talk well to each other. And Arthur Hiller is not my pick to direct even a little of a D-Day re-enactment.
Shogun S1 E1-3 – Good stuff. A handsome production with great sets to mix with the backdrops, compelling characters and the show does well grouping them (council members, Toranagaโs circle) and then reminding you of their deal when they break out from those groups, it keeps an intimidating number of characters simple to follow on an action level (ask me to write out all the names and backstories and Iโll have a tougher time past the main tier, but that may just be me). Refreshing for a hyped show to live up to the hype.
Fuck yeah Shลgun. It really does fully live up to the hype.
You even got the accent right and everything, I aspire to be such a fan.
I’ve talked about the show so much that my phone has fully memorized it with accent intact.
“I’ve had enough of this Christian nonsense” has easily found a space in my daily lexicon.
Justified, S3E3, “Harlan Roulette” – damn, this was a GOOD one. I planned to watch two episodes but enjoyed this one so much that I decided to quit while I was ahead. Felt like it was bouncing from one fantastic scene to the next, with a great guest star (Pruitt Taylor Vince!) and great moments for most of the regular cast – Boyd taking back the bar was a particularly great moment but Raylan gets a ton of fun stuff to do as well.
God does Boyd taking the bar back rule.
Howdy, first Magpies post! (been at my job hence why I haven’t been posting here.) Mainly Pushing Daisies, which continues to be magical even in only a truncated first season. I also may relate to Ned – the piemaker’s – sense of codependence and isolation, and somehow didn’t notice how the queer creator named his hetero couple “Ned” and “Chuck.” Everything and everyone in the show is cute or beautiful in some way, even Emerson Cod the grumpy PI who does not want to be considered cute or beautiful. (His stylish suits! His knitting!)
I read that first sentence and immediately thought “Been a long time since I rapped at ya…”
What did we listen to?
The Jesus Lizard, of course! But also the radio, the Tufts station was wilding out yesterday, Nick Cave’s “Get Ready For Love” into the Indigo Girls’ “Blood and Fire,” and it worked! And later Coco & Lafe’s “Big Bang!” was charming horny folk-country, how dare they give contemporary folk a good name.
Woo Tufts! I’m sure I’ve told my Boston story before. If I haven’t, it’ll make a great happy hour anecdote.
Speaking of tufts, when I was grabbing David Yow’s dick last night I got a hold of his pubic COMMENT CENSORED
1001 Albuns etc. – another light week on this because I’m also filling gaps from 2024, but I’m edging very close to the end of the 60s. Nothing blew me away this week, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed the first Chicago album (having previously only been familiar with their power ballad era), and The Youngbloods and Isaac Hayes albums were both very enjoyable. Less good: I’ve never paid much attention to The Grateful Dead before so the Live/Dead album was my official introduction and it did not do very much for me at all.
Screen Drafts – finishing up the Truffaut draft, which has been solidly interesting. I have a neglected Truffaut box set and the GMs basically being positive on every one of his films is making me keen to dip back into it.
Who the hell is putting Live/Dead on your list? Presumably American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead are a few years down the road, they’re the cliche “albums for people who don’t like the Dead” for a reason (great songs, little jamming) but the live album Europe ’72 from that period is also a better choice.
American Beauty is the only other one on there. The book is particularly complimentary about the 23-minute opener, “Dark Star”, which I would possibly call the lowlight of the 166 albums up to that point. I did get a bit more into the later tracks that had SOME focus and momentum though so I’ll keep an open mind for their reappearance.
It’s weird, a lot of people don’t “get” the Dead without the live material, warts and all, and just as many people need grounding in the studio albums, warts and all, before taking the leap into live albums. I’m a bit of both – as a music major, this was all right up my alley, but I was already into the famous classic songs before then. In my mind, the great run of albums gave the Dead more “cred” than Phish because I think Phish only made one or two truly great albums. Having a proper lyricist or two in the band’s orbit helped a lot, and that really comes through on record. You can also hear the exact moment they learned to do studio harmonies from their CSNY friends: Workingman’s Dead teases it a bit, and then American Beauty is all harmonies, all the time.
As a fan of harmonies, this sounds promising!
What if you were just really, really into hardcore, so the Dead feel like acid being poured directly into your ear (not fun acid)?
The Dead never registered on my radar when they were at their peak. Later I was gifted a GD compilation when I was active at a Swedish Dylan forum some twenty years ago and that selection has eaten itself into my marrow.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ywtMsaDEODVIPNdZFuO81?si=7b1f9feb1f5b4187
Nice, thanks!
Hey Friends, Whatโs Up?
Missives from your life!
I’m in New York! For another six hours or so before I head to New Orleans. Considering it was the company holiday party last night plus I live in Denver, I have no idea how I’m awake right now.
If you can awake it there, you can awake it anywhere.
Wifeโs having a stressful time, not a fun time to be a decent worker in the federal government. Luckily she has a decent amount of time off around the holidays. But the stress means all the Christmas shopping has been put onto me. Soโฆ enjoy your socks everyone! They were jumbled up sixteen to a pack, but I did make the effort to pair them before dividing them into gift bags. Youโre welcome.
I am way behind on Christmas shopping โ my mistake was a got a few things really early so the gnawing fear dipped below motivationally effective levels.
Speaking of Christmas shopping… are you able to pop over to the Movie Gifts List article and confirm/give your movie gifts today?
Thanks for the socks, Ploughman, Chris-man, Manplough, itโs just what I needed. Okay, maybe itโs not just what I needed, itโs not $750,000, but itโs the thought that counts.
Getting more and more fed up with work, I have an end-of-year review meeting with my boss on Monday and I think I’m just going to be honest about how much I’m struggling, see if they can offer anything to help before I give up and start looking for something new in the new year.
Had a practice with friends for the gig we’re doing together on Tuesday… only getting together once before we play in front of a crowd is a little daunting but I think it should be OK. Will be the first time I’ve played with other people in a decade, so hopefully it’s not a disaster, haha.
Am I allowed to say that I miss disqus a bit? Not as easy to actually hold a conversation here, is it. Good to see the site live and full of stuff, though!
The live updating and notifications that Disqus had were pretty valuable and I’m definitely missing them. Heck, I don’t even know who likes my comments! How am I supposed to shower them with praise for their good taste?
The nice thing about here is we can take suggestions straight to the site’s designer to see if they can be implemented (he’s got a ton on his plate at the moment, so I’m giving it a few days before making a list), so I’m hoping a couple quality-of-life items are possible in future updates. I will say not being able to hover and see who’s upvoting is probably much healthier for me. (Healthier still – Dave, who to my knowledge has not once upvoted anyone. Not once!)
I think we can all agree Dave is a huge jerk.
Ahaha! You know, he should really smile more.
The hell is this Dave guy … oh. Hey!
Yeah, very nice to have a direct route for that sort of thing!
I’d settle for not having to click past the AWFUL faces of the writers every time I refresh to catch a new comment. Uh… no offence.
It would be much easier to reprogram the site from the ground up than me to get a better face.
Upvotes are essentially cocaine! But yeah, this is resentment of upvotes appearing at the AV Club lo those many years ago that has calcified into a “I’d rather just reply” behavior/reflex.
Boo unfulfilling and shitty work! Woo (practicing for) live music! Just remember, you are the star and everyone else needs to subordinate their playing and indeed personal desires to yours, make sure you tell them this at every opportunity.
I donโt mind not being notified of likes. Or at least letโs say I can live with it. But not being easily notified of responses leaves a lot of conversation dangling.
Also, I donโt want to be notified by email if someone answers my comment, so I donโt like that being checked as a default.
These two critiques might seem contradictory. ๐คท๐ปโโ๏ธ
(Ooh, I also donโt like the inability to post Frinkiac memes, although Iโm sure thatโs a design choice directed at me specifically.)
I’ll take an email notification over no notification at all, but it’s not ideal.
There was a way to get notified of a response that wasn’t through email? This I didn’t know about.
Disqus notifications are pretty good I think. I would usually check in on https://disqus.com/home/inbox/ after I’d stopped having the site actively open for the day. I guess there’s still an element of manually checking rather than directly being notified though.
I just dropped a line about e-mail notification as default in the developer chat. Totally agree, the default should be “you do not get e-mails,” hopefully that can be changed down the road as things get less hectic.
Made my latest trip to the office in the rain Wednesday. Naturally, the rain started five minutes before I left. First board meeting actually on site, and by the time the meeting started, we went from 18 who RSVPed to be there in person to 12, and a fairly sizeable number of trustees who didn’t even dial in. But given how much the conversations in the room expanded to fill the time, good thing there weren’t more people. As much as I think you can have a good meeting over Zoom, it’s clear at least some of these folks talk more face to face.
Which brings up one of the liveliest chats: trustees vs staff about Work from Home. There wasn’t a single trustee who thinks anyone could possibly get anything accomplished working from home. Where’s the office culture? Where’s the camaraderie? Where’s the creativity? And there wasn’t a single senior manager who thought that letting staff work at home most of the time has not been a resounding success in every way possible. Since the decision about the staff is not made by the board, I don’t expect to be going to the office more any time soon. But it’s really fascinating how people above a certain age and a certain financial stratum just cannot conceive of doing things differently. This despite the fact that the board chair is about to go away to his winter home for four months and work remotely.
And my route home from the meeting took me past Rockefeller Center and the tree. Haven’t seen that in years, but it’s nice to get a sense of the city at the holidays. Even if it was rain and not snow.
Hi everyone! Good to finally post on here.
Crazy weather has wrecked my sinuses – if it weren’t for my regular allergy meds, I’d probably be laid up in bed the rest of the weekend. I skipped kickboxing to avoid overextending myself, and I feel so much better today.
Found out a FWB is now dating a guy who’s a known predator, even after I warned her. But he knows how to be charismatic in public while slowly wearing you down in private. So we’ll see what happens…
My anxiety only increases as I get closer to my friend’s wedding, and I have to travel to Los Angeles. I loathe destination weddings, and if it weren’t him, I wouldn’t be going.
On the plus side, I helped a friend stand up to her shitty roommate, and my cats have been extra snuggly in the cooler weather.
Good to see you! Hope the sinuses feel better soon.
I got my start date with HUD! 12/30, baby! Let’s do this! Still have my interview with Army Corps Of Engineers this week, they’re even in the same building. If anyone wanted to start a bidding war for my expertise, I would not oppose.
Proper crazy week about to start. Today’s my lounge around day before the fun begins. Tomorrow’s a whopper, two rehearsals and a show, and the matinee tomorrow. Then we switchover from Muppet Christmas Carol to the Holiday concerts, different material, rehearsal Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, shows Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday. [joker gif]”And here we…go”
I took my wife to Las Vegas to celebrate her [date deleted] birthday, and when my phone charger failed to work I missed out of the opening weeks activities here. I haven’t been there in 30 years and it’s changed a lot!! Overbuilt and gaudy with a huge lack of imagination. Fortunately, we stayed at Caesar’s Palace, which despite an enormous expansion retains a patina of old LV style, and Bobby Flay’s Amalfi restaurant provides one of the best restaurant experiences I ever had.
We also visited the Mob Museum and saw the brick wall in which the victims of the St. Valentine’s day massacre were lined up against (complete with bullet holes), one of Mickey Cohen’s suits, and a Howard Hughes ledger with entries written by Robert Mayheu, a former OSS agent turned mob and Hughes Corp. attorney who probably inspired the protagonists in American Tabloid. Good times. Fun trivia. The prop revolver that Vito Corleone used to take out Don Fanucci in Godfather II was the same one Indiana Jones used to bring down the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
God damn it, this reminded me that we meant to go to the Mob Museum when we went to Vegas this summer but forgot and/or ran out of time.