My Dog Said He Ate Your Bagel For World Peace

Didn't I tell you "Once You Know They're NewAgers You've Got Everything They Think Pretty Much Figured Out"?

Well, The Village Voice's Nick Pinkerton has written a review of NewAger Julian Schnabel's new film (that I referenced in that earlier post) and - needless to say - it's about what I expected:

A U.N. premiere! A Vanessa Redgrave cameo! Zionist hoodlums! Distributors the Weinstein Company and director Julian Schnabel overcome their well-documented aversion to media attention to address the Israel-Palestine question, pleading peace, compromise, and the creation of a self-governing Palestinian state. While Jewish advocacy groups swarm to Schnabel’s bait, it bears noting that Miral is a very flat, fuddled movie, an at-odds-with-itself partisan work, its convictions diffused in a warm soak of style.

...Falling far short of the intuitive scene-to-scene storytelling the freewheeling camera implies, Miral is fussy checklist filmmaking, a scavenger hunt for the issues and representative characters that one simply must include in a panoramic survey of its subject.

...These are pictures of people we scarcely know, suffering under circumstances we barely understand, and only further obscured by travelogue impressionism. For closing catharsis, Schnabel imports some maudlin Tom Waits caterwauling—a sure sign that this is the mediation of a sentimental American Boomer countless fathoms out of his depth. Hasn’t Jerusalem suffered enough?

Screw Jerusalem, haven't we all?

Wasn't I just saying, earlier today, that it's time for the Baby Boomers, specifically, to exit the stage?

And what gave Harvey Weinstein the impression a director with a pet psychic had anything relevant to say about,...well, anything? Least of all, anything having to do with Israel? Julian Schnabel's steeped in Naziism NewAge! When it comes to Israel, he's A) not going to understand it B) not going to be able to explain it C) obviously going to get the film wrong, and D) going to come down against Israel. All four of those were givens!

It doesn't matter if Schnabel was born Jewish - was Harvey Weinstein high?

What-everrrrr. As long as the rest of you have learned that - if I tell you such-and-such a person/artist is a NewAger - you'd better take it as a warning. Not to avoid their work all together (though you might want to) but to know what you're probably getting yourself into:

A denunciation of all that's good, coupled with an elevation of (and/or a rationalization for) all that's bad. And usually created by a fragile mind that's so confused the artist, once engaged in the act of creation, will almost always think attempting to hide his/her confusion is ultimately more important than actually entertaining anyone.

The reason I don't say to avoid all NewAge spectacles is because, if you're lucky, they can be quite entertaining about trying to accomplish that deception - but, unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case with Julian Schnabel. And I never thought it would:

I mean, come on, who really expects good art from a guy who uses a pet psychic?!?

Once You Know They're NewAgers You've Got Everything They Think Pretty Much Figured Out

Ha! This is hilarious - and more proof these NewAge weirdos are always on the wrong side:

One person who won't be attending the U.S. premiere of artist Julian Schnabel's new film at the United Nations on Monday: Long Island Rep. Pete King.

Schnabel and writer Rula Jebreal had written to King after the kickoff of his controversial hearings about Muslim radicalization last week and challenged him to watch "Miral," which portrays a Palestinian woman who becomes radicalized against Israel.

But the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee gave seeing the movie a thumbs-down.

" I'm not going," King said. "I've got a lot of things to do. I've got to get back to Washington. "

Schnabel, a Golden Globe winner, and Jebreal were outraged by King's hearings.

I bet they are. And what was Schnabel going to do if King did show up?

Probably introduce him to Schnabel's pet psychic,...

Totally Agro: Our Lives Are Surrounded (If Not Controlled) By New Age Fools And Charlatans

"Christine Agro’s career as a pet psychic to the stars started with yoga classes and a yoga student for the famed fashion photographer Bruce Weber.

The Weber family introduced Ms. Agro to Grace Coddington, the fashion icon and creative director at Vogue, who referred her to Buffy Birrittella, an executive vice president at Ralph Lauren,...Ingrid Sischy, the editor in chief of Interview, Joan Allen, the actress, and Julian Schnabel, the director and artist,...her clientele skews toward the glamorous,...a world devoted to the power of the convincing fantasy (often a pricey one — in this case, $100 per half hour).

Some might wonder if Ms. Agro brings her outer-ether clients compassion and common sense,...there are those who would follow her instructions off a bridge because they were true believers in a gift, or true believers in her impeccable In Style credentials.

Recently, says Ms. Agro, some of her clients have started asking if she’d consider working on behalf of babies and toddlers. Ms. Agro is now working on developing that business, under the name the Psychic Mom."

-- From a (all important) New York Times article on Christine Agro and her rich and influential clients. Miss Agro calls herself "a trained clairvoyant natural healer" rather than merely "a fraud".

Ahem. O.K., let's tear this apart:

Here's a woman, with no credentials for anything, that all these rich and powerful people want to have dealing with their children because the stupid bitch found somebody's lost cat? Pure fucking insanity.

And fuck her claims to be "trained": In what? By who? What was the criteria for this "training"? How was her success as a "clairvoyant natural healer" measured?

And notice that all her rich clients cater exclusively the two groups that virally spreads New Age bullshit: Certain kinds of gay men and those stupid, magazine reading, women. Those same idiots that are always overly-worried about their weight; wondering about knowing 150 Ways To keep Him Happy In Bed; and living their lives like those sick, paranoid, vengeful and terrified, bitches on the Lifetime Channel. Shit, it's too much - covering the doings of these back-stabbing assholes always gets to me:

Excuse me while I go vomit over our supposedly-finest paper's editorial judgement.