Friday, August 20, 2004

Torture Wheel: Greatest Hits
Tolstoy wrote that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way and I would add, that when it comes to marriage, especially with children, each unhappy couple reinvents the wheel. The torture wheel. Each of us, after all, has a different threshold for four-letter words and infidelities and all the other forms of emotional battery that you'll find in "We Don't Live Here Anymore," which is like a bad marriage greatest hits collection.

— David Edelstien, Film Critic, from his review of We Don't Live Here Anymore.

Something that continuously impresses me are the insights from Fresh Air contributors David Edelstien and John Powers. These two critical talents conjure poetic phrases and stop-in-your-tracks insights and make it look as easy as crossing a street. Except in reality that street would be the 405 Freeway and you'd be blindfolded and in a gunny sack. They make it flow; they make it come into focus; they make it look like the only answer it ever could have been. And their insights are so on-the-money as to become given, while if you were to sit down at your keyboard and attempt the same you might on a good day be able to only point out the most obvious after hours with a high-powered lamp and a 100x microscope.

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