Feature Stories

Closed: A Grocery Story

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It’s the first day of July in 2021. The exterior of what used to be O’Bryhim’s Thriftway looks unchanged at first glance.
Time travelers from 1995 (or 1985, or 1975) might whiz by on Maple Street without noticing much at all. The tan metal and brown brick remain the same. The word “Thriftway” is still on the signs. Only a local would notice “O’Bryhim’s” has been replaced by “Overbrook.”
I’m an O’Bryhim. This was partly my store and is partly my story, and the absence of our family name is one I feel in my gut.

Feature Stories

The Wit of Stillman

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Cinematic villains come in several predictable flavors: the capitalist (Avatar, The Muppets, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo); the war-monger (Avatar again, A Few Good Men, Platoon) the upper-class snob (Titanic, Harry Potter, The Lion King [Jeremy Irons’ Scar might be the first lion to attend Oxford]); the upper middle-class salesman (sometimes an asshole [Glengarry Glen Ross] and sometimes a fraudster [The Wolf of Wall Street]); and the entitled rich woman (101 Dalmations, Game of Thrones [not a film, but literally entitled]). If they are not the enemy, these archetypes are at the very least portrayed as boring buffoons who represent “the Establishment.” It is no surprise that writers and directors, part of society’s avant-garde, make this choice. West Los Angeles bursts with refugees from banal, suburban Midwestern childhoods. It is from this collection of “types” that writer and director Whit Stillman selects the heroes for his first two films: Metropolitan and Barcelona. Along with The Last Days of Disco, these films constitute an unofficial trilogy.