Movies
Lost in Space
(New Line Cinema). Yet another pan of yet another
screen adaptation of an old TV show. The $90 million remake of the sci-fi
series is said to lack the original's campy charm. "Silliness has been replaced
by stupidity" (Joe Morgenstern, the Wall Street Journal ). One problem: a
bad screenplay full of pop-psychological clichés about dysfunctional families.
Another problem: more than 750 special effects. Nonetheless, the movie
dethrones Titanic as the weekend's top box office draw. "Audiences must
have lost their will to be entertained," laments the Chicago Sun-Time s'
Roger Ebert. (Click here for David Edelstein's review in
Slate
,
here for
the film's official site, and here to read
more of Ebert's complaints in his
Slate
"Diary.")
The
Butcher Boy
(Warner Bros.). Critics praise The Crying Game
director Neil Jordan for his dark coming of age tale. They particularly like
his deft black humor and "gift for genuinely shocking his audience" (Janet
Maslin, the New York Times ). Pope-basher Sinead O'Connor portrays the
Virgin Mary. The story, set in Ireland, concerns a homicidal 12-year-old;
critics note the parallels to the Jonesboro, Ark., massacre. (Click here for
Edelstein's review in
Slate
.)
The
Spanish Prisoner
(Sony Pictures Classics). Playwright David Mamet's
fifth cinematic directorial effort--which, like his House of Games and
Homicide , concerns a big con--is declared his best. The plot is said to
be sinuous and suspenseful, and Mamet is credited with eliciting an
uncharacteristically strong performance from Steve Martin. Die-hard Mamet
haters complain he's still too abstract, can't write female characters, and
"remains a man of the theater" who doesn't get film (David Denby, New
York ). (
Slate
's Edelstein reviews The Spanish
Prisoner. Here is the official site for the film.)
Music
Left
of the Middle
, by Natalie Imbruglia (RCA). The 23-year-old Australian
ex-soap-opera star is crowned the next Spice Girl, "a pop juggernaut in the
making" (Tracey Pepper, the New York Observer ). Critics say Imbruglia
combines feminist power-pop à la Alanis Morissette and devastating beauty. "A
young Audrey Hepburn as refashioned for the post-grunge crowd" (Elysa Gardner,
Entertainment Weekly ). Cynics contend she's a "producer's puppet," a
pretty face who can't write songs or sing (David Thigpen, Time ).
Television
Push
(ABC; Monday, 8 p.m. EST/PST). This Melrose
Place- style soap about aspiring Olympic athletes is deemed the most uncouth
of the new teen and twentysomething shows. "Should embarrass ABC. Push
is smarmy on every level" (Robert Bianco, USA Today ). Some critics say
the show is little more than a vehicle for showing women romping around in
leotards and swimsuits. Others regret it squanders its potential for camp. (ABC
plugs the show here.)
Frontline: From Jesus to Christ--The First Christians
(PBS; click
here for a
schedule). Respectful praise for PBS's two-part documentary on the "real"
Jesus, served up for Holy Week. Critics are pleased with its agnosticism: The
producers neither support nor refute claims of Jesus' divinity. Instead, they
feature 12 scholars talking about his small, fractious sect. Dissenting, the
Weekly Standard 's Robert Louis Wilken criticizes its focus on trendy
concerns (power politics, "narrative") at the expense of spiritual content.
"The Jesus presented in this series is the one fashionable in
late-twentieth-century academic culture." (Here is the official site.)
Books
An
Instance of the Fingerpost
, by Iain Pears (Riverhead Books). British
journalist Iain Pears' best-selling murder mystery, set in 17 th
century England, is compared to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose .
Pears uses the thriller as an occasion to wax philosophical, meditating on
scientific method and political liberalism. Critics praise his skill at
depicting famous historical figures (philosopher John Locke, architect
Christopher Wren) and call his Rashomon -style narrative "baroque and
ingenious" (Andrew Miller, the New York Times Book Review ).
Cavedweller
, by Dorothy Allison (Dutton). The author of
Bastard out of Carolina , known as a confessional memoirist par
excellence, writes about someone other than herself, and earns mixed reviews.
Feminists approve of the novel, about an aging rock star and her two abandoned
children, because it coldly documents the woman's abuse and is "clear-eyed
about the economic forces that shape women's lives" (Valerie Sayers, the New
York Times Book Review ). Others say Allison "leans precariously toward
melodrama" and tries too hard for "gut-wrenching emotion" (Phyllis Richardson,
the Los Angeles Times Book Review ).
Updates
More
hubbub about Teletubbies, the PBS show aimed at toddlers: "In Britain,
young adults reportedly watch Teletubbies after long nights of dancing
and ingesting chemicals surely banned from Teletubbyland," says the New York
Times ' Caryn James. Ecstasy tablets featuring the faces of Teletubbies have
been spotted in London raves. ... In an essay on the state of realism
today, the New Republic 's Jed Perl pans the Chuck
Close retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art as "the work of an artist
who has no sensibility and is proud of it."
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
April
1:
Movie -- Grease ;
Movie -- The Newton
Boys ;
Television -- From
the Earth to the Moon (HBO);
Television -- Teletubbies (PBS);
Theater -- The Sound
of Music ;
Book -- The All-True
Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton , by Jane Smiley;
Book -- Consilience:
The Unity of Knowledge , by E.O. Wilson;
Fashion --Fall Lines.
March
25:
Event --70 th
Academy Awards;
Television -- Sitcom
Roundup ;
Movie -- Primary
Colors ;
Movie -- Wild
Things ;
Movie -- Taste of
Cherry ;
Theater -- Cabaret ;
Opera -- Lohengrin .
March
18:
Movie -- The Man in
the Iron Mask ;
Movie -- Love and
Death on Long Island ;
Movie -- Men With
Guns ;
Television -- Lateline (NBC);
Television -- Significant
Others (ABC);
Pop -- Pilgrim ,
by Eric Clapton;
Book -- Spin
Cycle : Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine , by Howard
Kurtz;
Book -- The Children , by David Halberstam.
March
11:
Movie -- The Big
Lebowski ;
Movie -- Primary
Colors hype;
Movie -- Twilight ;
Movie -- U.S.
Marshals ;
Theater -- The Beauty
Queen of Leenane ;
Book -- One Nation,
After All , by Alan Wolfe;
Book -- A History of the American People , by Paul Johnson.
--Franklin Foer
