Mary Elizabeth Williams's Open Salon Blog

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:10:45 -0400

Inspired by the story I wrote yesterday on sexy costumes... FOR DOGS I thought I'd ask: what are you doing this year, and what have you dressed up as in the past? Me?

Three years ago: Prada wearing devil.

Two years ago: Amy Winehouse.

Last year: Joan Holloway.

This year: Death panel. (Doctor's scrubs, reaper scythe, creepy mask)

Why couldn't all of 500 Days of Summer be like this?

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 13:09:19 -0400

Turns out the best joke in the movie wasn't in the movie.

Video: Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Cinemash "Sid and Nancy"

Web nostalgia: How 20 websites looked when they launched

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 13:09:57 -0400

Via today's UK Telegraph. Prepare for those "were we ever that young?" flashbacks!

The craigslist and Google ones really take me back.

Wondering, by the way, what Salon.com was fourteen long years ago? I'd forgotten that cute "next" button!

And yup, here's what we looked like, about a week after we launched.

Before The Simpsons, before Futurama, there was Life in Hell

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:08:43 -0400

When I was a Village Voice reading a teen, I was addicted to two things: Lynda Barry's "Ernie Pook's Comeek" and Matt Groening's "Life in Hell."

They were funny and weird and often quite sad.

So when, a few years later, I heard that Groening was doing a series of animated shorts for the new "Tracey Ullman Show," I swallowed my Ullman loathing and tuned in. The cartoons were about a dysfunctional family in the fictional everytown of Springfield, USA. Turns out I wasn't the only fan.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Last night, I was contemplating the wonders of romance and a near-forgotten cartoon popped into my head. It's a love quiz, and one of the entries is:

Q: Who wrote the book of love?
A: Some goddammed liar.

And so I pulled my old copy of "Love is Hell" off the shelf and laughed mightily.

Leafing through my old volumes of "Love is Hell," "Work is Hell," and "School is Hell," I was amazed at how much of what eventually became The Simpsons is present in Groenings work. But with more cuss words!

If you were too young to have discovered Hell the first time around, or you somehow came late to the Groening party, those early strips are revelatory. They were a product of a time that will never come again -- when a weekly comic could be dense and complicated, and they're as fresh and funny now as they were a generation ago.

As Binky would say, ain't that a corker.

Ralphie's still shooting

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:08:07 -0400

Remember this kid? Star of the greatest, most quotable holiday movie ever? (And no, I will not bear any disptuing on this point.)

He's quietly toiled away as an actor all these years, with tiny parts in movies like "The Breakup" and "Four Christmases." Check it out. He's the ticket agent.

But now he's moved on.

I was reading the Fall movie preview issue of EW, as is my wont, and noticed that October's "Couple's Retreat" is directed by none other than Peter Billingsley.

It's written by his pals Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, so I'd like to be hopeful, although the trailer bums me out. (Seriously, why would all those fine ladies get with those gone-to-seed dudes?)

I admit that when I read that Billingsley was helming a feature, I immediately pictured him sulking behind a camera, bunny suit a-go-go.

Think again.

Ummm. I think I wouldn't mind double dog daring it with that.

I don't whether "Couples Retreat" will be any good whatsoever. But I'd like to think that somewhere, Bob Clark, the man who directed "A Christmas Story" after giving the world "Porky's," is smiling.