Check out our online review of The Merkin Man, a parody by local filmmaker Devin Dukes that received its premiere last month on Johns Island. For a taste of what the film had to offer, note the spoof of state logo of South Carolina above.

According to our film critic Nick Smith . . .

A merkin is a pubic โ€œwigโ€ popularized in the 15th-18th centuries by prostitutes who needed something to cover up their โ€œpublicโ€ parts oozing with sores symptomatic of syphilis.

These days, merkins have resurfaced as โ€œbody furnitureโ€ for the kinky set.

Dukesโ€™ 20-minute program boasts no kink. It doesnโ€™t intend to, anyway. Instead, a perky reporter by the name of Rose Chase-Pinckney interviews Justice P. Courtney, a down-home merkin maker who uses Spanish moss to weave his wares.

For the full review, go here.

Meanwhile, Scott Renshaw reviews the latest flick by wordsmith Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson’s War. Renshaw writes . . .

For the film adaptation of George Crileโ€™s fascinating non-fiction book Charlie Wilsonโ€™s War, director Mike Nichols recruited a guy in Sorkin who seems to know a few things about documenting the political milieu.

But the creator of The West Wing โ€” as well as the late, lamented SportsNight โ€” has never been a man of few words. While his densely verbose scripts are often smart and punchy, the fear was that heโ€™d get so chatty that he wouldnโ€™t be able to trim down the sprawling narrative to a manageable size. Instead, he improbably did exactly the opposite.

Charlie Wilsonโ€™s War is beefy real-world politics stripped down to skin and bones.

Check out the full review here.


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