John Powers

Apocalypse, Tuesday

John Powers
September 11, 2001 — that date will inject our brains. —Larry King Not long after the first American Airlines jet crashed into the World Trade Center, CBS showed footage of hundreds of people rushing away from the building. What astonished me were the faces. A few people looked terrified, most......

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

John Powers
One of the few redeeming pleasures of the Clinton presidency was watching morality czar Bill Bennett galumph onto the talk shows and bray, ”Where‘s the outrage?“ I guess I shouldn’t have laughed at him. Only seven months into the Bush Era, I‘ve started braying the same thing. Last week, the......

Do the Bartman

John Powers
Now that Peter Bart is on the ropes, it seems that everyone has a juicy story about him. I don’t. But I did meet him a few times back when I was the film critic for Vogue. And the same thing always happened. After politely saying hello, Bart would stare......

In the Mood for Movie Love

John Powers
If you were to pick the ideal site for a film festival, it would probably not be Pusan, a drab, sprawling port city on the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula. The traffic is murderous, the downtown stinks of fish, and the shops sell unintentionally hilarious examples of one-world culture......
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100 Years of Weltschmerz

John Powers
Photo by Jacques M. Chenet/Corbiss A few months ago, I asked a New York book editor if there was a new Günter Grass novel coming out. She shrugged and said, "Who cares?" Although it may seem as if the joke was on her — for Grass went on to win......
The Secret of My Success

Imitations of Life

John Powers
Had Pedro Almodóvar shot this scene, he would have taken us into the neighbor’s apartment, where we would have heard Fox and Slater moaning, their bedpost banging against the double doors. And this wouldn’t mean they weren’t nice kids; it would mean they were having a great time — just......