Movies
Wag
the Dog
(New Line Cinema). Pundits can't resist noting the "scary
prescience" (Janet Maslin, the New York Times ) of Barry Levinson's
acclaimed satire about a fake war orchestrated to divert attention
from a presidential sex scandal. Their spin on the eerie parallel between art
and life: 1) Maybe Hollywood does understand Washington. 2) The movie
may stop Clinton from attacking Iraq, since that move would seem contrived. 3)
L'affaire Lewinsky is the superior drama: "Nobody writes better scripts
than Washington, D.C." (Stephen Hunter, the Washington Post ). Sidebar:
Hollywood reporters say Universal Studios is panicking over when to release
Mike Nichols' adaptation of the Clinton satire Primary Colors , currently
due out in March. (See Jacob Weisberg's dispatch in
Slate
.)
Gingerbread Man
(PolyGram). Having expected a disaster, most
critics confess surprise that Robert Altman's direction redeems this thriller,
which began as a hokey John Grisham story. "Hitchcock would have been
intrigued, and maybe envious," says the Wall Street Journal 's Joe
Morgenstern. What keeps this from being yet another Grisham movie is,
apparently, Altman's idiosyncratic camera work and Kenneth Branagh's winsome
performance as a slick Southern lawyer. Dissenters complain that Grisham's plot
is unbecoming material for a director of Altman's caliber. "One feels great
risks were not taken, which is unusual for even the worst Altman films," says
the New York Observer 's Andrew Sarris.
Spice World
(Columbia). Movie reviewers echo the music
critics' pans of the popular Spice Girls and conclude that "sometimes the
Zeitgeist counts for squat" (David Kronke, the Los Angeles
Times ). The group's feature film, in which they're harassed by a tabloid
reporter, is trashed as a "plotless, pointless, mirthless" knock-off of the
Beatles' Hard Day's Night (Richard Harrington, the Washington
Post ). The pop stars do get credit for exhibiting self-deprecating humor
and apparent awareness that "they have achieved ludicrous measures of fame and
fortune on the strength of markedly limited talents" (Anthony Lane, The New
Yorker ). (Clips are available.)
Books
Birthday Letters
, by Ted Hughes (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). An
autobiographical book of verse by the British poet laureate and former husband
of iconic poet Sylvia Plath revives the cultish fascination with her suicide in
1963 at age 30. Most critics applaud Hughes for breaking his 35-year silence
about his marriage and admitting his insensitivity and infidelity, which some
claim drove Plath over the brink. Others, including feminist literary scholars
such as Elaine Showalter, complain that Hughes doesn't sufficiently own up to
the consequences of his adultery. "Hughes should have been as merciless to
himself as she was with herself" (Jack Kroll, Newsweek ). Still others
dismiss the poems as "clumsy stuff" (Ian Hamilton, the Sunday
Telegraph ).
Night Train
, by Martin Amis (Harmony Books). The British bad-boy
writer tries his hand at an American detective novel and draws mixed reviews.
Some dismiss Amis' use of police lingo and his intricate story about a suicide
investigation as bad parody. The policemen, says Luc Sante in
Slate
, seem to be "cut and pasted from a vague memory of
Barney Miller ." The New York Times ' Michiko Kakutani and others
relish Amis' verbal cleverness and defend the book as a "deliciously readable,
highly polished diversion." (An excerpt is available.)
Enduring Love
,
by Ian McEwan (Doubleday). Applause for The Cement Garden author's
thriller about a science writer and an evangelical drifter who's obsessed with
him. Critics like McEwan's plot twists (you're not sure if the Christian is
psychotic until the end) and theoretical bent (high-minded riffs on Darwin and
Keats). In
Slate
, Alice Truax
compares McEwan with Thomas Hardy, another "great master of morality,
psychology, and circumstance, but ... McEwan makes you nervous." Others find
McEwan's intellectualism too snooty, making the novel feel like "a storified
lecture" (Richard Eder, the Los Angeles Times ). (Click here for an
excerpt.)
Event
Super
Bowl XXXII (San Diego). An exciting game and watchable halftime show deflated
the perennial gripes with Super Sunday, leaving critics only the overhyped,
overpriced commercials to kvetch about. "Surely a future Super Bowl will see
players selling commercial space on their butts," says the Washington
Post 's Tom Shales. Reasons for outrage: exorbitant cost ($1.3 million for a
30-second spot) and banal products. The biggest disappointment was a two-part
Intel ad, narrated by Steve Martin, that allowed viewers to log on to the
Internet to vote for its ending, to no apparent consequence.
Dance
"Mikhail Baryshnikov: An Evening of Music and Dance With the White Oak
Chamber Ensemble" (City Center, New York City). On the occasion of his
50 th birthday, the dancer ascends to mythic proportions with a
majestic solo concert. "The profundity of an artist such as we won't see again
for some time" (Sarah Kaufman, the Washington Post ). Critics forgive his
use of goofy gimmicks--he improvises a dance to his own heartbeat, which is
amplified by a device affixed to his chest--focusing instead on the credibility
he has given modern dance, having switched from classical ballet in
midcareer.
Update
The
conventional wisdom about the musical Ragtime
continues to fluctuate. This week several critics dub it the Great American
Musical, including The New Yorker 's John Lahr, who pronounces it "a
theatrical watershed: an awesome pyrotechnical display of theatrical craft and
showmanship."
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
Jan.
21:
Movie -- Fallen ;
Movie --Sundance Film
Festival;
Movie -- Live
Flesh ;
Musical -- Ragtime ;
Book -- Pillar of
Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 , by Taylor Branch;
Book -- Shadows on
the Hudson , by Isaac Bashevis Singer;
Television -- South
Park (Comedy Central);
Art --"Arthur Dove: A Retrospective" (Whitney Museum).
Jan.
14:
Death --Sonny Bono;
Book -- A Prayer for
the City , by Buzz Bissinger;
Book -- Cold
Mountain , by Charles Frazier;
Book -- The World
According to Peter Drucker , by Jack Beatty;
Movie -- Afterglow ;
Movie -- Arguing the
World ;
Movie -- Ma Vie en Rose .
Jan.
7:
Movie -- The
Apostle ;
Movie -- Oscar and
Lucinda ;
Movie -- The
Boxer ;
Television -- Seinfeld (NBC);
Book -- Truman
Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall
His Turbulent Career , by George Plimpton;
Book -- Paradise ,
by Toni Morrison;
Music --"Northern Lights: The Music of Jean Sibelius."
Dec.
31:
Winter Movie Roundup
--Franklin Foer
