Salon.com > Zero Dark Thirty http://www.salon.com Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:20:46 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Senate investigating contact between CIA and “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/senate_investigating_contact_between_cia_and_zero_dark_thirty_filmmakers/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/senate_investigating_contact_between_cia_and_zero_dark_thirty_filmmakers/#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:55:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13160584 The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has launched an investigation into the CIA's involvement with the Osama bin Laden manhunt dramatization, "Zero Dark Thirty," in an effort to determine what role government staffers had in a movie that politicians have sharply criticized as being "misleading" and "grossly inaccurate."

Reuters broke the news last night, paraphrasing a source close to the Committee, which "will examine whether the spy agency gave the filmmakers 'inappropriate' access to secret material." "They will also probe whether CIA personnel are responsible for the portrayal of harsh interrogation practices and in particular the suggestion that they were effective," Reuters reported.

The investigation comes weeks after Feinstein, along with Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Carl Levin, D-Mich., wrote a letter to Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton criticizing Kathryn Bigelow's film:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/senate_investigating_contact_between_cia_and_zero_dark_thirty_filmmakers/feed/ 4 The “Zero Dark Thirty” debate isn’t really about torture http://www.salon.com/2012/12/29/the_zero_dark_thirty_debate_isnt_really_about_torture/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/29/the_zero_dark_thirty_debate_isnt_really_about_torture/#comments Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13156550 Art can be created with moralistic intentions, but it is inherently a ruthless and amoral endeavor, whose meaning always gets away from its creator. It can certainly be used to soothe the savage breast, lend succor in an hour of darkness, and so on. But let’s not forget that children in the death camps were made to play Schubert by murderers and torturers who believed themselves to be civilized and cultured men. That thread of civilization and culture is what saves teenage genius Wladyslaw Szpilman’s life in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” – but the ironic question posed by that film is whether that’s a good reason for one man to live while millions of others died. Because he could play the piano?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/29/the_zero_dark_thirty_debate_isnt_really_about_torture/feed/ 98 Is Hollywood stronger than ever? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/is_hollywood_stronger_than_ever/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/is_hollywood_stronger_than_ever/#comments Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:47:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13154876 The American Prospect This has been a fertile year for people to lament the decline of movies. In fact, two of the most distinguished critics around—Davids Denby and Thomson—more or less proclaimed in 2012 that the jig was up for film as an art form. Since one of them is 69 and the other is 71,  the "Après nous, le déluge" side of this might strike skeptical readers as a mite self-involved.

Nonetheless, if they're talking about Hollywood's output as opposed to very-much-alive-and-well world cinema, they don't lack for circumstantial evidence. Between endless iterations of durable comic-book franchises and ever dumber, more ineptly made comedies, no wonder lots of people who used to love movies now prefer HBO and Showtime when they want their intelligence massaged. All but the worst hack reviewers dread the paucity of recommendable commercial movies for grown-ups until Thanksgiving's arrival starts coughing up the usual Oscar fodder. And then a lot of the Oscar fodder—e.g., Silver Linings Playbook—just hopes we'll mistake corn for cornsilk.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/is_hollywood_stronger_than_ever/feed/ 3 Andrew O’Hehir’s 10 Best Movies of 2012 http://www.salon.com/2012/12/25/andrew_ohehirs_10_best_movies_of_2012/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/25/andrew_ohehirs_10_best_movies_of_2012/#comments Tue, 25 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13148130 Well, listen – the next time the movie beat gets boring I’ll write another essay proclaiming the death of film culture. Apparently that was all it took to perk things up! Actually, the widely misinterpreted point I was trying to make, which was that film no longer holds the position of cultural centrality it once did, on either the highbrow or mass levels, remains valid. Even amid the undoubted richness of this fall and winter season, you can find examples of this: While films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and Michael Haneke’s “Amour” pile up rave reviews and critics’ group awards, they don’t resemble what the general public thinks of as a movie, and the number of Americans who pay to see them in a movie theater may not exceed the audience for a single episode of a hit cable show. (My No. 1 pick of the year, which will no doubt be described as an eccentric choice, failed to gross even $100,000 in the United States. That’s more like the audience for a cable-access show. In Polish.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/25/andrew_ohehirs_10_best_movies_of_2012/feed/ 57 Acting CIA chief blasts “Zero Dark Thirty” http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/acting_cia_chief_blasts_zero_dark_thirty/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/acting_cia_chief_blasts_zero_dark_thirty/#comments Sun, 23 Dec 2012 14:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13153715 Michael Morell -- the acting director of the CIA -- has added his voice to those critical of the way the new movie "Zero Dark Thirty" portrays the importance of torture in capturing Osama bin Laden.

According to the New York Times, Morell sent an internal memo to CIA employees on Friday, criticizing the "strong impression" in the film "that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Laden. That impression is false.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/acting_cia_chief_blasts_zero_dark_thirty/feed/ 14 “Zero Dark Thirty” is indefensible http://www.salon.com/2012/12/22/zero_dark_thirty_is_indefensible/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/22/zero_dark_thirty_is_indefensible/#comments Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13153078 AlterNet It's difficult for one filmmaker to criticize another. That's a job best left to critics. However, in the case of Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, an issue that is central to the film -- torture -- is so important that I feel I must say something. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have been irresponsible and inaccurate in the way they have treated this issue in their film. I am not alone in that view. Senators Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein and John McCain wrote a letter to Michael Lynton, the Chairman of Sony Pictures, accusing the studio of misrepresenting the facts and "perpetuating the myth that torture is effective," and asking for the studio to correct the false impression created by the film. The film conveys the unmistakable conclusion that torture led to the death of bin Laden. That's wrong and dangerously so, precisely because the film is so well made.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/22/zero_dark_thirty_is_indefensible/feed/ 72 Pentagon, CIA likely approved “Zero Dark Thirty” torture scenes http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/pentagon_cia_likely_approved_zero_dark_thirty_torture_scenes/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/pentagon_cia_likely_approved_zero_dark_thirty_torture_scenes/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:54:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13150700 Through a scathing letter to Sony Pictures about its new film "Zero Dark Thirty," Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D), Carl Levin (D) and John McCain (R) have made national headlines by publicly chastising the studio for turning its film into a piece of revisionist history. The lawmakers note that while the film bills itself as "based on first-hand accounts of actual events" and as an act of "journalism," the truth is that it substantially deviates from the facts. Specifically, its narrative portrays torture as "effective in eliciting important information" related to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, even though CIA records prove this is not true.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/pentagon_cia_likely_approved_zero_dark_thirty_torture_scenes/feed/ 13 McCain, Dems slam “misleading” torture depiction in “Zero Dark Thirty” http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/mccain_dems_slam_misleading_torture_depiction_in_zero_dark_thirty/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/mccain_dems_slam_misleading_torture_depiction_in_zero_dark_thirty/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:55:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13150681 Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” the film that depicts the CIA’s decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, has been under fire for its torture scenes; many critics have gone so far as to say that the film “glorifies” torture by suggesting that information gained in the waterboarding scene led to the capture of bin Laden. Now, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., have written a letter  to Michael Lynton, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, calling the depiction of torture "misleading" and "factually inaccurate."

"We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie 'Zero Dark Thirty,'" the Senators wrote. "We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden."

They continued:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/mccain_dems_slam_misleading_torture_depiction_in_zero_dark_thirty/feed/ 5 Bret Easton Ellis apologizes to Kathryn Bigelow for sexist tweets http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/bret_easton_ellis_apologizes_to_kathryn_bigelow_for_sexist_tweets/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/bret_easton_ellis_apologizes_to_kathryn_bigelow_for_sexist_tweets/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13148961 Prickly author Bret Easton Ellis issued a lengthy apology to "Zero Dark Thirty" director Kathryn Bigelow yesterday for his series of sexist tweets earlier this month, in which he said that "Kathryn Bigelow would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she's a very hot woman she's really overrated." What he really meant to say at the time, according to his letter in The Daily Beast, was this: "I hadn’t seen 'Zero Dark Thirty' but thought, in the Twitter-moment, can it really be that good? Marc Boal and Kathryn Bigelow and another war film?" It was meant in the spirit of one oppressed minority to another, you see: "[The tweets] ultimately revealed a much more layered sexism that, I guess I thought as a gay man, I could get away with since my supposed vitriol about Bigelow was coming from another 'oppressed' class. But in 140 characters it didn’t land that way."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/bret_easton_ellis_apologizes_to_kathryn_bigelow_for_sexist_tweets/feed/ 10 Torture: America’s other national pastime http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/torture_americas_other_national_pastime/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/torture_americas_other_national_pastime/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13148584 If you look backward you see a nightmare. If you look forward you become the nightmare.

There’s one particular nightmare that Americans need to face: in the first decade of the twenty-first century we tortured people as national policy. One day, we’re going to have to confront the reality of what that meant, of what effect it had on its victims and on us, too, we who condoned, supported, or at least allowed it to happen, either passively or with guilty (or guiltless) gusto. If not, torture won’t go away. It can’t be disappeared like the body of a political prisoner, or conveniently deep-sixed simply by wishing it elsewhere or pretending it never happened or closing our bureaucratic eyes. After the fact, torture can only be dealt with by staring directly into the nightmare that changed us -- that, like it or not, helped make us who we now are.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/torture_americas_other_national_pastime/feed/ 5 How true is “ZD30″? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/fact_checking_zero_dark_thirtys_almost_journalism/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/fact_checking_zero_dark_thirtys_almost_journalism/#comments Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:06:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13124627 A number of film critics have already described "Zero Dark Thirty" as opening to a black screen and the haunting soundtrack of recorded phone calls from the World Trade Center towers as they collapsed on 9/11. It doesn't. The movie opens to white text against a black background: "Based on first hand accounts of actual events," it reads.

Debate over what the film does — the politics and ethics it might expound — are already fraught, not least because the project's pitch is steeped in truth claims about "actual events." "Zero Dark Thirty" (ZDT) director Kathryn Bigelow told the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins, “What we were attempting is almost a journalistic approach to film.’’ The text that opens the movie is carefully worded in line with this idea of a journalistic attempt. It doesn't present itself as "a true story" or a totalizing narrative. And in this much we can endeavor to hold "Zero Dark Thirty" to account; we can ask, at least, do the events it depicts have such a basis?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/fact_checking_zero_dark_thirtys_almost_journalism/feed/ 5 Pick of the week: Kathryn Bigelow’s mesmerizing post-9/11 nightmare http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/pick_of_the_week_kathryn_bigelows_mesmerizing_post_911_nightmare/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/pick_of_the_week_kathryn_bigelows_mesmerizing_post_911_nightmare/#comments Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13124337 I do not believe that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s mesmerizing, operatic and profoundly troubling “Zero Dark Thirty” offers any apology or justification for torture, and certainly does not “glorify” it, to use Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald’s term. But it’s important to recognize that the people who think it does are responding to the moral ambiguity of the movie, which pervades not just the question of torture as an instrument of American policy but its entire portrayal of the CIA’s obsessive and insanely expensive hunt for Osama bin Laden. Here’s the sense in which they’re not wrong: What “Zero Dark Thirty” has to say about torture and many other things is not entirely clear, and what you see in it depends on what you bring with you. That moral ambiguity will drive some viewers nuts, but in my view it is also the quality that makes “Zero Dark Thirty” something close to a masterpiece.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/pick_of_the_week_kathryn_bigelows_mesmerizing_post_911_nightmare/feed/ 76 Extraordinary rendition’s day in court http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/extraordinary_renditions_day_in_court/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/extraordinary_renditions_day_in_court/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:49:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13123675 While new movie "Zero Dark Thirty" has renewed debates over the CIA's use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a Thursday ruling in the European Court of Human Rights  has brought the issue of U.S. extraordinary rendition practices to the fore. The court ruled that the CIA illegally subjected a German-Lebanese man to extraordinary rendition in a secret Afghan prison sinisterly dubbed "the salt pit." It was the first case relating to the U.S.'s practice of transferring terror suspects across borders for interrogation to come before the Strasbourg-based court.

Khaled El-Masri was kidnapped in Macedonia by the authorities there and handed over to U.S. custody. He was flown to Afghanistan in December 2003 and interrogated there until his release in May 2004, when he was dumped on a mountain road in Albania. Thursday's European court decision focused on Macedonia's role, ruling that the government must pay El-Masri 60,000 euros in damages, but carries important implications for U.S. accountability over the use of torture in its war on terror.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/extraordinary_renditions_day_in_court/feed/ 7 Oscar’s ideological throwdown http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/oscars_ideological_throwdown/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/oscars_ideological_throwdown/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13121870 Hollywood could be getting an unexpected gift this season: An Oscar race that isn’t completely boring. With an impressive number of high-quality and high-visibility movies in the mix, movies that offer markedly different worldviews, interpretations of human experience and dramatized real-world events, the Academy Award struggle of 2013 ought to be a heated cultural imbroglio with all sorts of ideological overtones, one that lays bare some of the fault lines in American society.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama-hunting thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” has already been proclaimed the year’s best film by several critics’ groups (including the New York Film Critics Circle, to which I belong), and become the object of a left-wing counterattack, all before its official release. Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” depicts our most revered president as a shrewd political manipulator, and has itself been mired in historical controversy about its presentation of the struggle to end slavery. Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” takes on our nation’s “peculiar institution” from a different angle, spinning an outrageous tale of a freed slave taking garish and bloody revenge on the antebellum slave-owning class, with the director’s usual indifference to accuracy, plausibility or taste. Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” a front-runner in the foreign-language race and a likely contender in other categories, tackles a subject that may be even more taboo than torture and slavery: The realities of old age and death that we will all face.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/oscars_ideological_throwdown/feed/ 10 “Zero Dark Thirty” writer says “it’s misreading the film” to say torture led to bin Laden capture http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_writer_says_its_misreading_the_film_to_say_torture_led_to_bin_laden_capture/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_writer_says_its_misreading_the_film_to_say_torture_led_to_bin_laden_capture/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13121751 The critically acclaimed Osama bin Laden manhunt drama, "Zero Dark Thirty," hasn't even been released yet, but it has already opened up a sprawling, multi-tiered debate about the U.S. government's use of torture. On one hand, commentators like Joe Scarborough are using the film to argue that torture led to the capture of Osama bin Laden. On the other, columnists are attacking the film's director and screenwriter, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, for taking a pro-torture stance by even including a waterboarding scene that, as the New Yorker notes, "strayed from real life."

But in an interview with TheWrap, Bigelow and Boal stated that such political arguments are "preposterous":

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_writer_says_its_misreading_the_film_to_say_torture_led_to_bin_laden_capture/feed/ 5 “Zero Dark Thirty” doesn’t celebrate torture! http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_doesnt_celebrate_torture/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_doesnt_celebrate_torture/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:09:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13121815 The American Prospect Zero Dark Thirty doesn't even come out until next week, but Kathryn Bigelow's much-hailed movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is already provoking outrage in some quarters for allegedly "glorifying" — OK, sometimes "celebrating" — torture. As all too bloody usual, the loudest howls are coming from people who haven't actually seen ZD30, some of whom — yes, Andrew Sullivan, I mean you — really ought to know better. Ginning up controversies about movies without bothering to watch them first is really more Bill Donohue and the Catholic League's sort of thing, and does Sullivan want to be in that company?

Since plenty of other folks apparently do, I hope you won't mind two cents from a lowly movie critic who admires the hell out of Zero Dark Thirty and isn't exactly big on vindicating Dick Cheney's worldview. There are really two separate arguments here, and people shouldn't confuse the two — though they already have. One is about factual accuracy, and worth taking seriously. The other's about Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal's attitude toward the very grim stuff they show us, which is an appalling thing to just guess at sight unseen.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/zero_dark_thirty_doesnt_celebrate_torture/feed/ 13 “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Lincoln” make AFI top-10 list http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirty_lincoln_make_afi_top_10_list_2/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirty_lincoln_make_afi_top_10_list_2/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13120941 LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty," Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic "Lincoln" and Christopher Nolan's superhero tale "The Dark Knight Rises" are among the American Film Institute's top-10 movies of the year.

Also on the AFI top-10 announced Monday: Ben Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis drama "Argo;" Benh Zeitlin's low-budget hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild;" Quentin Tarantino's slavery saga "Django Unchained;" Tom Hooper's Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables;" Ang Lee's shipwreck story "Life of Pi;" Wes Anderson's first-love romance "Moonrise Kingdom;" and David O. Russell's misfit love story "Silver Linings Playbook."

The AFI also picked its top-10 television shows for the year: "American Horror Story;" "Breaking Bad;" "Game Change;" "Game of Thrones;" "Girls;" "Homeland;" "Louie;" "Mad Men;" "Modern Family;" and "The Walking Dead."

Creative ensembles for the films and TV shows will be honored Jan. 11 at a luncheon in Los Angeles.

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirty_lincoln_make_afi_top_10_list_2/feed/ 0 “Zero Dark Thirty’s” torture debate http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirtys_torture_debate/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirtys_torture_debate/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13120626 The same weekend that Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt docudrama, "Zero Dark Thirty," dazzled movie critics, columnists attacked the movie for its depiction of torture. Specifically, the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins notes that the movie, intended to be historically accurate, incorrectly highlighted torture as the key to Osama bin Laden's capture; the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald went so far as to say the film "glorifies" torture, saying that the film "propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the US government, based on pure falsehoods."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/zero_dark_thirtys_torture_debate/feed/ 7 Is “Zero Dark Thirty” poised for an Oscar win? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/is_zero_dark_thirty_poised_for_an_oscar_win/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/is_zero_dark_thirty_poised_for_an_oscar_win/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13120160 It hasn't even been released yet, but Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," the intense drama focused on the CIA's 10-year hunt for Osama bin Laden, has already has swept best film awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, Boston Society of Film Critics, National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Online. And independent film critics agree. New York magazine 's David Edelstein, who picked "Thirty" as the best film of 2012, calls it "phenomenally gripping — an unholy masterwork." Salon's Andrew O'Hehir calls it "mesmerizing," arguing that its "troubling" depictions of torture prompt viewers to answer tough but "excellent" questions. Time's Richard Corliss wrote that it "blows 'Argo' out of the water."  It's even got the (dubious) honor of being hate-tweeted by famed writer Bret Easton Ellis.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/is_zero_dark_thirty_poised_for_an_oscar_win/feed/ 4 Bret Easton Ellis zeroes in on Kathryn Bigelow http://www.salon.com/2012/12/06/bret_easton_ellis_zeroes_in_on_kathryn_bigelow/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/06/bret_easton_ellis_zeroes_in_on_kathryn_bigelow/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:19:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13116952 Imagine what a blissfully unaware state Bret Easton Ellis must live in all the time. Imagine being a pot that black, swanning around calling any other human on the planet "overrated" and a maker of "just OK junk." Yet that's exactly what Ellis, who, when not loathing the memory of David Foster Wallace, browbeating Lindsay Lohan or cryptically tweeting apparent requests for cocaine, is a sometime writer, did on Twitter Thursday. And because he's Bret Easton Ellis, he threw in some old-fashioned sexism for good measure. At least the man who once opined of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case that "just reinforces my theory that men are no picnic but women are fucking CRAZY" is consistent in his misogyny.

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