This time
of year, for some reason, all the critics publish their "Best of 1997" lists,
ranking their favorite books, movies, albums, and other cultural fare.
Slate
's editors thought it only fitting to use this special
installment of "Summary Judgment" to summarize the Best of everyone's Best of
lists--a year-end review of the year-end reviews.
Fiction
Critics
pronounce 1997 a landmark year, studded with career-topping masterworks by
literary giants such as Don
DeLillo, Cynthia Ozick, Thomas
Pynchon, and Philip Roth. Mason & Dixon , Pynchon's epic about
the 18 th -century surveyors of America, tops most lists. "A book of
heart, fire and genius," says the New York Times Book Review . More
controversial is Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain , a surprise best seller
about a Civil War deserter, which, to the dismay of many critics, beat out
DeLillo's Underworld for the National Book Award. The New York
Times , Los Angeles Times , and Washington Post weekly book
reviews all leave it off their lists, but Entertainment Weekly considers
it the best of a "banner year for adventure stories." (See
Slate
's reviews of Ozick, Pynchon, Roth, and
Frazier.)
Nonfiction
Reviewers
single out Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air , an account of a disastrous and
deadly Mount Everest expedition, among the year's best nonfiction. Otherwise,
no consensus emerges. The weekly book reviews like such highbrow biographies as
Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf (the New York Times Book Review ) and
Jorge Castañeda's Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Richard
Eder, the Los Angeles Times ). Other reviewers fill their lists with
celebrity memoirs, especially Mia Farrow's What Falls Away --a trend some
critics bemoan. "Why not pay real writers to write?" Time grumbles.
(
Slate
reviews Lee's book and
Farrow's memoir.)
Movies
The
neo-noir detective flick L.A.
Confidential, based on a James Ellroy novel, crowns most reviewers' 10-best
lists. It alone "truly exceeded its advance hype," says People . Canadian
director Atom Egoyan's The Sweet
Hereafter, about a school-bus accident, also impresses critics, winning him
plaudits as a "postmodern Hitchcock" (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment
Weekly ). Other favorites include Donnie
Brasco, The Wings of the Dove, and Face/Off, while the well-reviewed Boogie
Nights and Titanic both fail to make many lists. Looking back on '97,
critics lament the ubiquity of disaster movies, mindless screenplays, and actor
Robin Williams, who, Time magazine says, is waging "a campaign to suck
our affection for him to its marrow." (See
Slate
's reviews of
L.A.
Confidential, The Sweet Hereafter, Donnie Brasco,
The Wings
of the Dove, Boogie Nights, and Titanic.)
Pop
Music
In a "year
dominated by generic" acts and "studio creations" (Robert Hilburn, the Los
Angeles Times ), critics declare Bob Dylan's comeback album Time Out of
Mind and diva Erykah Badu's debut Baduizm the best of the bunch.
Badu, "the most thrilling new voice in pop" ( Time ), wins praise for
bucking genres (she blends soul, jazz, and hip-hop) and writing edgy lyrics.
Critics also declare 1997--dominated by the Spice Girls--as the "year of the
woman" in rock: "Never in pop history have female singers been quite so
aggressively, shrewdly marketed on the basis of gender alone" (Karen Schoemer,
Newsweek ).
TV
Ellen 's coming out is hailed as the year's highlight, a "seminal moment"
in television history (Howard Rosenberg, the Los Angeles Times ). Critics
say the sitcom was witless and pointless until it focused on its main
character's sexuality; "[e]ver since ... it has radiated with the sheer joy of
creative freedom" ( Entertainment Weekly) . Critics also lavish praise on
the animated Fox sitcom King of the Hill , the latest series from
Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge. Its protagonist, a red-neck
propane salesman, is deemed the heir to Roseanne and Archie
Bunker . Another favorite is WB's tongue-in-cheek action series Buffy the
Vampire Slayer , about a 15-year-old super-heroine: "A postfeminist parable
on the challenge of balancing one's personal and work life" ( Time ).
Technology
Top honors
go to the Riven --an upgrade to the best-selling computer game of all
time, Myst --about a person marooned on an island. "Big, bloody and
beautiful," says Time . High marks also go to the postcard-sized Palm
Pilot, a computer that retrieves e-mail and reads handwriting. Reviewers
excoriate Digital Pets, a noisy, interactive version of the 1970s fad the Pet
Rock. Digital Pets are labeled the year's worst innovation and a "nightmare for
teachers and parents drafted to babysit" ( People ).
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
Dec.
17:
Movie -- Titanic ;
Movie -- Deconstructing Harry ;
Movie -- Scream
2 ;
Television -- Ally
McBeal (Fox);
Art --"Gianni Versace"
(Metropolitan Museum of Art);
Architecture --Museum
of Modern Art (New York City);
Book -- Hogarth: A Life and a World , by Jenny Uglow.
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.
--Franklin Foer
