Dave's Fiction Warehouse

I don’t know which surprises me more: That legendary actor Jim Nabors has married a man, or that he is, in fact, still alive. Seriously. I was under the impression that he had died four years ago. About the same time Abe Vigoda passed on. And now it appears Vigoda is still alive too. ( NOTE: Jim Nabors died a little more than three years after this was written.) But you know the really remarkable thing about this? It’s that a Z-list celebrity like Nabors, who was in a crappy sitcom more than 40 years ago, nevertheless commands notice from all the major media when he does something as banal as getting hitched in Seattle. They talk about 15 minutes of fame, but that’s not really true is it? Warhol was dead wrong, just as F. Scott was wrong with that howler about “no second acts in American lives.” He didn’t really think it through. But then that was before “Dancing with the Stars” and the proliferation of gossip sites explicitly devoted to tracking the twitches of the once-famous. Now t...

S o far I’ve seen six of the nine Oscar nominees for best picture. Still unviewed: Amour, Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook. Of the ones I’ve seen, four are superb. It’s tough to rank them in order of preference. In any case, I won’t be howling at my TV if any of these four should win. Here are my impressions so far: Argo. I still haven’t forgiven Ben Affleck for his preening Gigli era, but his last couple of movies have moved him a long way toward redemption. One of the remarkable things about Argo is how it can be such a taut thriller even though its outcome is widely known. That’s the mark of a great director. I don’t know if Affleck can be called a great actor, but this film deserves all the love it’s gotten. Besides the story, I really dig the attention to period detail. As someone who worked at a newspaper while all this Iran hostage stuff was going on, I can say that it all looks pretty authentic — down to the goofy facial hair, enormous glasses and polyester sport c...