Movies
The
Jackal
(Universal Pictures). This big-budget remake is deemed a
bastardization of director Fred Zinnemann's 1973 political thriller, The Day
of the Jackal . "At best generic, at worst nonsensical," says
Newsweek 's David Ansen. Main gripes: an implausible and uninspired
premise--the FBI recruits an Irish Republican Army terrorist to hunt down an
elusive professional assassin--and an excess of gratuitous explosions. Stars
Richard Gere and Bruce Willis are said to have given lackluster performances.
Nobody in the film "seems to believe in it one bit," says the Washington
Post 's Stephen Hunter. (Click here for the official site, and here for David
Edelstein's review in
Slate
.)
Anastasia
(20 th Century Fox). Fox's cartoon musical
about the czar's lost daughter is dismissed as a knockoff of Disney's cartoon
musicals. Critics like the all-star cast of voices (Meg Ryan, John Cusack, and
Christopher Lloyd) and the animation, which get "the Disney house style down
cold" (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly ). But they profess
disappointment at the story, especially at the part where Rasputin causes the
Russian Revolution by casting a magic spell. Prediction: Without the Disney
name, the movie won't succeed financially. (Here's the official site.)
The
Sweet Hereafter
(Fine Line Pictures). High praise for art-house
director Atom Egoyan's adaptation of Russell Banks' novel about a town that
loses all its children in a school bus crash. Critics say the film, which won
the Grand Prize at Cannes, avoids mawkishness despite its heart-wrenching
subject matter. Critics especially like its intricate structure (it has four
different narrators and is told in nonchronological fragments). It "carries the
exhilaration of crystal-clear artistic vision," says the New York Times '
Janet Maslin. Ian Holm's portrayal of a guilt-wracked yet greedy lawyer is said
to be especially skillful. (Clips are available here.)
Theater
The
Lion King
(New Amsterdam Theater, New York City). After decrying the
Disneyfication of Broadway for months, critics rave over the studio's Broadway
adaptation of its cartoon movie. "Far more textured and original than the
film," says The New Yorker 's John Lahr. Special praise goes to
avant-garde director Julie Taymor for the costumes, which integrate puppets and
masks and are said to be stylish and innovative. Critics also like the way the
story has been rewritten to add some psychological depth (it's now an Oedipal
allegory). The score, by Elton John and Tim Rice, has been reworked using Zulu
choral harmonies.
Book
Another City, Not My Own
, by Dominick Dunne (Crown). Vanity
Fair 's O.J.-trial correspondent writes his "lightly fictionalized memoir"
about the case. Some critics applaud the book for detailing L.A. high society
rather than rehashing the courtroom drama. Dunne's gift for melodrama and
exaggeration, says The New Yorker 's Jeffrey Toobin, makes him the
"perfect chronicler for the case." Others criticize Dunne's penchant for name
dropping and gossip mongering, particularly his boasts of having given Nancy
Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor regular O.J. briefings. All the reviewers express
bewilderment at Dunne's decision to novelize the trial, since he ends up using
real names for every character but himself.
Art
"Egon
Schiele: The Leopold Collection, Vienna" (Museum of Modern Art, New York
City). In a new retrospective, the Vienna modernist (1890-1918) wins critics'
grudging respect. "Schiele is one of modernism's more exotic honorable
mentions," says the New York Times ' Holland Cotter. They say Schiele's
appeal is less aesthetic than pornographic. His signature pictures--of
adolescent girls exhibiting their genitalia--"contain most of this show's
electricity" (John Updike, the New York Review of Books ). Several
critics observe that Schiele can only do nudes. (MoMA plugs the
exhibit.)
Update
In the
New Republic , Jed Perl deflates the hype surrounding Robert
Rauschenberg's Guggenheim retrospective. His work "is a parody of an
artistic achievement. ... [I]t seems to not make the slightest difference that
his raw materials are clichés, and that his handling of the medium--of any
medium--is inert."
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
Nov.
12:
Movie -- Starship
Troopers ;
Movie -- The Wings of
the Dove ;
Movie -- Mad
City ;
Theater -- Proposal ;
Book -- The Dark Side
of Camelot , by Seymour M. Hersh;
Book -- Alfred C.
Kinsey: A Public/Private Life , by James H. Jones;
Book -- Joy of
Cooking: The All-Purpose Cookbook ;
Art --"The Warhol Look/Glamour Fashion Style" (Whitney Museum).
Nov.
5:
Music -- Spiceworld , by the Spice Girls;
Museum --P.S. 1
Contemporary Arts Center;
Movie -- Red
Corner ;
Book -- Violin ,
by Anne Rice;
Book -- My
Brother , by Jamaica Kincaid;
Opera -- Xerxes , New York City Opera.
Oct.
29:
Movie -- Gattaca ;
Movie -- A Life Less
Ordinary ;
Theater -- Triumph of
Love ;
Book -- Speaking
Truth to Power , by Anita F. Hill;
Television -- Rodgers
and Hammerstein's Cinderella (ABC);
Television -- Lewis
& Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (PBS);
Music -- The Velvet
Rope , by Janet Jackson;
Dance -- Merce Cunningham: Forward & Reverse (Brooklyn Academy
of Music).
Oct.
22:
Movie -- The Devil's
Advocate ;
Death --James
Michener;
Book -- Jackie
Robinson: A Biography , by Arnold Rampersad;
Theater -- Side
Show ;
Architecture --New
Jersey Performing Arts Center (Newark, N.J.);
Fashion --Wearable
Computers (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab);
Music -- Psyché ,
by Cesar Franck (New York Philharmonic).
--Franklin Foer
