Movies
The
Big Lebowski
(Gramercy Pictures). Critics are split on the Coen
brothers' follow-up to Fargo . The positive spin: They've grafted their
trademark deadpan wit onto a '90s film noir. (In the movie, an aging stoner
[Jeff Bridges] and his psychotic bowling partner [John Goodman] get caught up
in a botched kidnapping scheme.) "Cheech & Chong bumbling about in Philip
Marlowe's gumshoes," writes Rita Kempley of the Washington Post . The
negative spin: Like other Coen films, this one is clever but rambling and
undisciplined. The auteurs "have reached a stage where they no longer question
their ideas or flesh them out" (Alex Ross,
Slate
). (Click here for the official site.)
Primary Colors
(Universal Pictures) hype . Buzz builds for
the March 20 opening of Mike Nichols' adaptation of Joe Klein's roman à
clef about the 1992 presidential campaign. Cover articles about the film
appear in Time , New York , and George . Political
predictions ensue: Either John Travolta's portrayal of Gov. Jack Stanton, a
Clinton-like philanderer, will hurt the president, or it will help him. The
character is "a mixed bag, a stinker who does some good," says Richard Lacayo
in Time . Most-repeated rumor: Travolta, a Scientologist, promised to
make Stanton sympathetic if Clinton pressed Germany to stop harassing his
co-religionists. (Click here for a trailer.)
Twilight
(Paramount Pictures). Critics agree that 73-year-old
Paul Newman only improves with age. He's "the last of Hollywood's sex-god
aristocrats" (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly ). The praise is less
fulsome for Twilight , in which Newman plays a retired detective who is
talked into investigating a murder even though his lover (Susan Sarandon) is
implicated . The self-conscious cracks about aging and the stylish shots of Los
Angeles are said to be entertaining, but the movie's pace is deemed sluggish.
Its plot, says The New Yorker 's Anthony Lane, "would just about grace an
average episode of The
Rockford Files ." (A trailer is available
here.)
U.S. Marshals
(Warner Bros.). This unofficial sequel to the 1993
thriller The Fugitive is judged inferior to its predecessor. Critics
feel Wesley Snipes lacks the gravitas to replace Harrison Ford as a falsely
accused man on the lam, though some claim that Tommy Lee Jones, as the U.S.
marshal who chases him, saves the film. The Los Angeles Times ' John
Anderson says you might enjoy the movie's "escapist thrills" but predicts
"you'll feel cheap in the morning." (The studio touts the movie here.)
Theater
The
Beauty Queen of Leenane (Atlantic Theatre Co., New York City). Excitement
greets the U.S. debut of 27-year-old Anglo-Irish sensation Martin McDonagh. He
is "[d]estined to be one of the theatrical luminaries of the 21 st
century," says the New Republic 's Robert Brustein. Reviewers declare his
play about a 40-year-old virgin and her mother "more immediate and vital than
any new drama in seasons" (Ben Brantley, the New York Times ). Dissenters
call McDonagh a "sadistic manipulative writer with an unappealing ruthlessness
toward his characters" (Charles Spencer, the London Daily
Telegraph ).
Books
One
Nation, After All
, by Alan Wolfe (Viking Press). Sociologist Alan Wolfe
examines "what middle-class Americans really think." Critics are pleasantly
surprised by Wolfe's unconventional conclusion, based on in-depth interviews
with 200 middle-class Americans, that mainstream America is tolerant,
pragmatic, and basically liberal (except when it comes to gays). "If you are a
sucker for Walt Whitman ... and the belief that Americans are basically a good
and just people--some of this stuff will make you weep" (Brent Staples, the
New York Times Book Review ). Osha Gray Davidson, dissenting in the
Los Angeles Times Book Review , accuses Wolfe of romanticizing the middle
class: "a wet kiss masquerading as social science." (Click here for Jonathan
Rieder's review in
Slate
and here for an excerpt
from the book.)
A
History of the American People
, by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins). The
conservative British journalist, known for his mammoth histories, writes an
old-fashioned "Great Man" chronicle of the United States. Reviews praise
Johnson's range and lively prose but chide him for ignoring 30 years of
scholarship and slighting America's racial and economic iniquities. "The most
malignly error-ridden study of the American people to appear since the
Politburo went out of business" (Robert Sam Anson, the London Times ).
Even Newt Gingrich, who raves about the book in the Weekly Standard ,
says Johnson's account of events since the 1960s is too polemical.
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
March
4:
Movie -- An Alan
Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn ;
Movie -- Krippendorf's Tribe ;
Movie -- Lolita ;
Music -- Ray of
Light , by Madonna;
Book -- The
Smithsonian Institution , by Gore Vidal;
Theater -- Art ;
Art --"Chuck Close."
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).
--Franklin Foer
