Movies
Deep Impact
(DreamWorks/Paramount). The first of the summer's two
comet-meets-Earth movies rakes in an opening nonholiday-weekend record of $41.9
million but flops with critics. It wins credit for downplaying special effects
in favor of story and "exploring the salutary effects of imminent doom" (Janet
Maslin, the New York Times ). But it's said to be otherwise soporific,
with too few action scenes and characters who seem oddly cavalier about their
impending death. (Trailers are available here.)
Character
(Sony Pictures Classics). The winner of the Best
Foreign Film Oscar is judged less treacly than other recent winners. Critics
are seduced by the Dickensian depths of this Dutch thriller, set in 1920s
Rotterdam, about a spiteful father and his resentful bastard son. The New
Yorker 's Daphne Merkin says it's akin to "a great nineteenth-century novel
that presumes on its reader's infinite patience." Others say it's muddled by
poorly demarcated flashbacks and instances of incomprehensible Dutch humor.
(Click here for the official site.)
Music
Into
the Sun
, by Sean Lennon (Grand Royale). The second of John Lennon's
sons to trade on his father's name in launching a pop career. Critics say
Lennon deserves acclaim for his songwriting, independent of his pedigree, but
dwell almost exclusively on how much the album sounds like the Beatles.
"[D]erivative" and "lacking intensity," says Newsweek 's David Gates.
Profiles repeat quotes from Lennon saying that the U.S. government murdered his
father.
Books
Titan: The Life and Times of John D. Rockefeller
, by Ron Chernow
(Random House). A new biography prompts a round of comparisons between the
Standard Oil magnate (1839-1937) and Microsoft's CEO, Bill Gates--both
exploit(ed) labor and use(d) unfair tactics to dominate new industries.
Chernow, who had unprecedented access to Rockefeller's papers, wins praise from
the New York Times Book Review for bringing an unusually fine "moral
intelligence" to the declining art of biography. His tale is said to transcend
the simplistic views of the mogul as either Horatio Alger success story or
venal monopolist. Chernow's verdict: He was both (as well as a skirt chaser, a
pathological tightwad, and a philanthropist whose giving was motivated by PR
concerns).
The
Time of Our Time
, by Norman Mailer (Random House). A 1,286 page, 3
