It happens all too frequently that even when they’re worth the trouble—and God knows there are plenty of different kinds of trouble—too many books appear on the shelves to announce themselves with the fanfare of their packaging, a fine illustration, or the sheer volume and heft of their multitudinous pages, often with some kind of pretentious adornment like deckled edges. It wants to scream to the potential reader: I am important and goddamn it I’m the worth price, or however long I’ll be gathering dust in your library. And I’d be willing to bet that we’re all convinced the price tag reflects this kind of pompous importance. So when it…
-
-
In the browbeating rage and turmoil running like a poisoned artery through the body and life of Johnny, a low-class and frustrated shmuck of an intellectual from Manchester, a rapist wandering London in search of a living, breathing person on whom he can inflict his spleen and disappointment, something of the glory of Hamlet rises to the surface. It might be only an illusion, or a slow-rising something like a bubble that just pops before we notice that it exists; but it is there, and the same vein of cynical despair arises in the form of this cinematic masterpiece directed by Mike Leigh: this is Naked. Because matters in this…
