Later, he opens himself up: Peter Fonda in 3:10 to Yuma.Photo: Courtesy of Lions Gate Films
At Slate, I was occasionally inspired to hold reader contests, although I’m not sure I ever got around to mailing the winners their prizes. (In one case, first prize was a copy of a book that chronicled the making of the dire Cole Porter biopic
De-Lovely; second prize was
two copies.) Having watched several films in the last year (including the Coen brothers’ upcoming thriller
No Country for Old Men) in which characters performed surgery on themselves, I have gone from dreading these scenes to tolerating them to whooping it up whenever someone takes a slug of whiskey and digs out a bullet with a fondue fork. Please tell me your favorite such scene (the procedure doesn’t have to be invasive, just painful) and, in 50 words or less, why you really dig it. (You can email me at
filmcritic at nymag.com.) First prize will be a range of sutures. Just kidding. It’s a one-year subscription to
New York in print, which you will enjoy even if you live in Idaho.