Critical uncertainty at Slate

What's going on with Slate's movie coverage? David's gone. Dana just had a kid (congrats!). Metcalf hasn't written a film article since the middle of February. There's a revolving crew doing DVD extras. Grady Hendrix drops by every now and then, but he's still listed as "a writer living in New York." If anyone knows, feel free to drop me a line or leave a note in the comments section. Still, Hendrix's Inside Man piece is worth noting just for its closing graf:

Inside Man is nothing less than a Spike Lee joint, a well-mannered older brother to his uneven Clockers (1995). It sports the same trolley shots, a ghetto-crime video game (here called Kill That Nigga instead of Gangsta), and even a prominently displayed bottle of the Bomb, that movie's imaginary bomb-shaped malt liquor. More than anything, it makes the case for Lee as the pre-eminent chronicler of modern-day New York. The coolness and the crudity, the attitude and the alienation, he nails down every detail with a clear-eyed precision as if he's never seen a movie set in the city before. Suspects are interrogated at the corner deli, a vital clue hinges on breast size, cops halt the negotiations for a heated debate over Grand Central Station, and when Denzel needs to identify a foreign language he just walks out into the crowd of onlookers and asks: Does anyone speak this? Predictably, someone raises his hand.

It's not Edelstein, and Clockers was far better than "uneven," but still: not bad for a temp.