Movies
Titanic
(20 th Century Fox). James Cameron's
budget-busting epic, expected to be a Waterworld -style flop, winds up
getting mostly good reviews. Critics praise Cameron for evoking vintage
Hollywood romances rather than schlocky disaster movies. "Titanic floods
you with elemental passion in a way that invites comparison with ... D.W.
Griffith," says Entertainment Weekly 's Owen Gleiberman. Critics
especially like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as the star-crossed young
lovers. Dissenters gripe about hackneyed dialogue, stock characters, and too
much melodrama. (David Edelstein reviews the
film in
Slate
. And clips are available here.)
Deconstructing Harry
(Fine Line Features). Woody Allen's
28 th feature--about a misogynistic novelist who disguises his own
life in his stories--is deemed his darkest. Some critics gush over it, ranking
it alongside his '70s classics. They laud his intermingling of fiction and
reality, his fresh one-liners, and the all-star ensemble cast (which includes
Robin Williams, Demi Moore, and Kirstie Alley). Others find the humor too
vicious to be funny and accuse Allen of justifying his own misdeeds. "Woody
Allen has wound up making a fetish of himself, and it's beginning to be
embarrassing," says New York 's David Denby. (See David Edelstein's
review
in
Slate
and the movie's official site.)
Scream 2
(Dimension Films). A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven's
sequel to his self-parodic horror movie is said to be almost as amusing (and
scary) as the original. "[T]hink of a Friday the 13 th
as
written by Eugene Ionesco and Luigi Pirandello" (Stephen Hunter, the
Washington Post ). Critics enjoy Craven's self-knowing winks (a film
within the film spoofs the original Scream ). Some find the
self-consciousness over the top. "[W]hat once was a fun house of twisting
corridors is now as endlessly reflective as a hall of mirrors" (Tom Gliatto,
People ). (Click here for the official site.)
Television
Ally
McBeal
(Fox; Mondays; 9 p.m. EST/PST). After premiering to mixed
reviews, this show about a neurotic Harvard-educated lawyer gains a cult
following. Giving it a second look, critics attribute the show's appeal to its
unconventional plots and insights into contemporary young women. "Irresistible
television, whether you experience it as a sexual-differences safari or as a
blueprint for your own life" (Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly ). Others
attack it as retrograde: a "male producer's wet dream of ... [the] postfeminist
career woman, ... beaten down, and not so secretly hungry for a good man to
fill the aching void of her life," says Tom Carson of the Village
Voice .
Art
"Gianni Versace" (Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, New
York City). The Met's retrospective of the campy designer's clothing stirs up
debate. Some praise the museum for its uncharacteristic timeliness and for
recognizing that Versace "was one of the fashion titans of this century" (Julia
Szabo, Newsday ). Others say the Met unwittingly reveals the mediocrity
of his designs, which got noticed only because celebrities wore them. In the
Wall Street Journal , Francine Prose accuses the curators of inflating
the designer's import with implausible claims that he was influenced by Yeats
and Kandinsky. (The exhibit is plugged here.)
Architecture
Museum
of Modern Art (New York City); renovation by Yoshio Taniguchi. The
unveiling of plans for an annex to MoMA caps a season of architectural
extravaganzas. Critics applaud Taniguchi's design plan to double MoMA's
exhibition space by building on top of the 1939 original. "Its lucid integrity
should go far toward raising the standards of architecture in New York City,"
says the New York Times ' Herbert Muschamp. Taniguchi, acclaimed for his
sleek Tokyo buildings, plans to use unassuming materials--glass, aluminum, and
black slate--which critics say won't distract from nearby masterpieces by Cesar
Pelli and Philip Johnson.
Book
Hogarth: A Life and a World
, by Jenny Uglow (Farrar, Straus &
Giroux). A literary critic's biography of the 18 th -century satirical
English painter wins praise for "bringing [her] subject and his milieu alive"
(Bruce Cook, the Washington Post Book World ). The critics accept Uglow's
revisionist claim that Hogarth's famous moralizing was accompanied by a
prurient fixation on sex. (In one painting, women watch a man masturbate in
front of a mirror.) Critics also like the book's gossip about Hogarth's friends
Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding.
Update
Newspaper
critics weigh in against Amistad. Their biggest complaint: It's too much of a Spielbergian
spectacle. "[T]oo much of Amistad feels as if it's been lifted from the
lore and language of movies rather than life," says the Wall Street
Journal 's Joe Morgenstern.
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
Dec.
10:
Movie -- Amistad ;
Movie -- Good Will
Hunting ;
Television -- Breast
Men (HBO);
Theater -- The Diary
of Anne Frank ;
Opera -- Amistad ;
Book -- A Certain Justice , by P.D. James.
Dec.
3:
Architecture --J. Paul
Getty Museum (Los Angeles);
Theater -- The Old
Neighborhood , by David Mamet;
Movie -- Flubber ;
Movie -- Welcome to
Sarajevo ;
Television -- Public
Housing (PBS);
Book -- Release 2.0:
A Design for Living in the Digital Age , by Esther Dyson;
Photography --"Weegee's World: Life, Death, and the Human Drama"
(International Center of Photography Midtown).
Nov.
26:
Movie--
Midnight in
the Garden of Good and Evil ;
Movie -- John
Grisham's The Rainmaker ;
Movie -- Alien
Resurrection ;
Book -- Ronald
Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader , by Dinesh
D'Souza;
Theater -- Ivanov ;
Music -- Standing
Stone , by Paul McCartney.
Nov.
19:
Movie -- The
Jackal ;
Movie -- Anastasia ;
Movie -- The Sweet
Hereafter ;
Theater -- The Lion
King ;
Book -- Another
City, Not My Own , by Dominick Dunne;
Art --"Egon Schiele: The Leopold Collection, Vienna" (Museum of Modern
Art).
--Franklin Foer
