MONDAY

Nobody enjoys being an asshole more than Joe Queenan. In Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler: Celluloid Tirades and Escapades, a new collection of the pop-culture critic’s Movieline magazine columns, the acid-tongued Queenan gleefully rips into such ripe La-La Land targets as models who think they can act, kid-flick merchandising, and, naturally, Barbra Streisand. The funniest entry, however, is the title diatribe, in which Queenan goes to the movies and, sitting among utterly annoyed patrons, heckles the shit out of such screen classics as Falling Down, Indecent Proposal, and Alive. During the last film, about teenage rugby players stranded without food in the Andes, Queenan shouts: “Eat Vincent Spano first. He’s the only one who really deserves to die” and “Could someone please pass the A-1 sauce?” When a father of two teenage sons protests, “You got some fuckin’ attitude on you,” Queenan snorts: “You take your family to see a movie about cannibal rugby players and I got some fuckin’ attitude?” Yeah, I know; it’s obnoxious—but as long as Queenan stays away from my theater, I’m laughing hard. Queenan’s other new book—the guy’s as prolific as he is childish—is a response to his lifelong churlish ways: My Goodness: A Cynic’s Short-Lived Search for Sainthood finds the funnyman trying (but not that hard) to make amends with all those people and places he’s wronged. Except for Barbra Streisand. He really doesn’t like Barbra Streisand. Queenan reads from his new books at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, at Olsson’s Books & Records, 1200 F St. NW. Free. (202) 347-3686. (Sean Daly)