Movies
An
Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn
(Hollywood Pictures). Reviewers
pan this mock-documentary about a director named Alan Smithee who destroys the
negatives for his forthcoming film. "[A] stunningly bad, sophomorically vulgar
parody" (Jack Mathews, Newsday ). (Intended joke: Alan Smithee is the
pseudonym used when a director removes his name from a film's credits.
Unintended joke: Burn Hollywood Burn 's director took his name off the
credits.) Problems are said to include a glut of heavy-handed in-jokes; a
spiteful tone; and disjointed editing, done by the film's despised
screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas ( Showgirls ). (The film is plugged here.)
Krippendorf's Tribe
(Touchstone Pictures). Critics disagree on
the merits of this sendup of academia starring Richard Dreyfuss. Some accuse
the film--about an anthropologist who fakes discovering an indigenous tribe--of
purveying racial stereotypes. Its laughs are as crude as the chuckles of
"little boys sniggering over National Geographic " (Susan Wloszczyna,
USA Today ). Others say its digs at ivory-tower credulousness and
Dreyfuss' turn as a neurotic professor make it "too funny to ignore" (David
Denby, New York ). (The trailer is available here.)
Lolita
. Tired of waiting for the film to find an American
distributor, critics weigh in on Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne's
controversial adaptation of Nabokov's 1955 novel. Michael Wood, in the New
York Review of Books , says the film, which stars Jeremy Irons and Melanie
Griffith, "is downright demure; deeply, almost debilitatingly loyal to
Nabokov's novel." The New Yorker 's Anthony Lane calls it "a slight,
tender movie--not, I think, worth fighting a battle over."
Music
Ray
of Light
, by Madonna (Warner Bros.). The material girl goes spiritual
with her first pop album in four years. It works. Critics are charmed by
Madonna's newfound passion for Kabbalah and impressed by her frank treatment of
her own careerism. "A flawless, grown-up" album, says the Times of
London's Alan Jackson. Praise also goes to her integration of techno beats and
computer effects. The 39-year-old diva thus recovers from an early-'90s
"creative nadir"-- Erotica and Sex --that "reeked of heat-seeking
desperation" (David Browne, Entertainment Weekly ). (Audio clips are
available here.)
Book
The
Smithsonian Institution
, by Gore Vidal (Random House). Reviews for
Vidal's 23 rd novel range from poor to lukewarm. The story is viewed
as a paltry excuse for Vidal to lash out yet again at American imperialism (set
in 1939, it is the tale of a 13-year-old prep-schooler in the Smithsonian
after-hours, when the exhibits come to life). The forays into science fiction
are said to have "the unfortunate effect of liberating all [Vidal's] worst
artistic impulses" (James Bowman, the Wall Street Journal ). Vidal does
win praise for caustic portrayals of dead presidents--with all the "freaks and
foibles"--of the sort he has brought to his other historical fiction
(Christopher Benfey, the New York Times Book Review ).
Theater
Art
(Royale Theatre, New York City). As did their London and
Paris counterparts, most New York critics rave over French playwright Yasmina
Reza's satire about modern art. Her comedy about an argument over the merits of
an all-white painting is "like a marriage of Molière and Woody Allen" (Jack
Kroll, Newsweek ). Key points: the accessibility of the aesthetic debate;
the hilarious banter; and the Seinfeld -like characters, especially that
of an egomaniac (played by Alan Alda). But some critics dismiss the controversy
over white paintings as slight and old-hat: "theatrical brain candy but from a
gourmet shop" (Linda Winer, Newsday ).
Art
"Chuck
Close" (Museum of Modern Art, New York City). The 57-year-old portraitist
wins acclaim for bucking trendy postwar art movements. His billboard-size faces
are said to hearken back to Rembrandt and classical court artists. The critical
favorites are Close's later, quasipointillist portraits, which he completed
after a blood-vessel injury paralyzed him. The power of his work is attributed
to its scale and his meticulous method. "His pictures ... are like magic
tricks," says the New York Times ' Michael Kimmelman. (MoMA trumpets the
show here.)
Update
In the
New York Times Book Review , Katha Pollitt calls for a truce in the
battle between partisans of Sylvia Plath and Ted
Hughes: "What if, as in many bad marriages, both partners were driven to
the extremes of their personalities, ... what if his poems and her poems each
represent the limited, self-justifying perspective of a terribly injured and
injuring spouse?"
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
Feb.
25:
Television -- The
American Experience: Reagan (PBS);
Television -- The
Wedding (ABC);
Television -- The
Closer (CBS);
Movie -- Palmetto ;
Book -- Cloudsplitter , by Russell Banks;
Art --"Fernand Léger"
(Museum of Modern Art);
Theater -- Freak .
Feb.
18:
Movie -- Sphere ;
Movie -- Mrs.
Dalloway ;
Movie -- The Wedding
Singer ;
Book -- The Street
Lawyer , by John Grisham;
Book -- Riven
Rock , by T. Coraghessan Boyle;
Television --18 th Winter Olympics (CBS);
Theater -- The Vagina Monologues .
Feb.
11:
Movie -- Nil by
Mouth ;
Movie -- Blues
Brothers 2000 ;
Oscar Nominations ,
early reviews;
Theater -- Shopping
and Fucking ;
Book -- Jack Maggs:
A Novel , by Peter Carey;
Book -- Black and
Blue , by Anna Quindlen;
Music -- Yield ,
by Pearl Jam;
Art --"China: 5,000 Years" (Guggenheim).
Feb.
4:
Theater -- The
Capeman ;
Television --Clinton-Sex-Scandal Coverage;
Television -- Dawson's Creek (The WB);
Movie -- Great
Expectations ;
Movie -- Desperate
Measures ;
Book -- Cuba
Libre , by Elmore Leonard;
Book -- The House Gun , by Nadine Gordimer.
--Franklin Foer
