Profiles

Doug Liman has found his Pants

Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants: Doug Liman Goes From Bourne to Brooklyn, Puts Millennials Under Microscope

“I’m more inclined to see the villains’ point of view in my movies,” Doug Liman told The Observer on a brisk October afternoon over bottles of Poland Spring in the Tribeca studio of his production company, Hypnotic. “When you grow up in New York, you’re more inclined to see everybody’s point of view.”

Mr. Liman, who was raised on the Upper East Side and graduated from Fieldston and later Brown, was answering our question about how a local sensibility has crept into his Hollywood work. He does seem to have a soft spot for certain bad guys—say, Chris Cooper’s Conklin from Bourne Identity, whom the director based on Oliver North. “You identify with all the bureaucratic hassles that he has to deal with,” Mr. Liman told us. “People who believe they are patriotic, bypassing all these rules of law to get done what they think is right.” Read More

Appetites

Illo: Kelsey Dake

Sampling the Delicacies at the Le Trapeze Swingers Club

Not long ago, I sat at a cocktail lounge in the East Village with a realtor friend as she extolled the virtues of Le Trapeze, a swinger’s club in midtown. The experience, she swore, had cured her of “body image issues.” Which I took to mean that everyone else there looked worse. It didn’t really sound like my scene, to be honest, until she mentioned the buffet. Read More

The New Math of the Male Mind: One, Zero

One sunny afternoon a few summers back, some dudes gathered at Guy Mellitz’ studio apartment on 21st Street and Third Avenue to bro-out.

There was Ted, an aspiring James Taylor type; Jason, an aspiring TV editor, who occasionally played fiddle to Ted’s guitar; Subieta, a friend of Jason’s from Read More