Movies
Two
Girls and a Guy
(Fox Searchlight Pictures). Despite raves for Robert
Downey Jr.'s performance in director James Toback's comedy, critics deem Two
Girls bathetic. Downey plays an actor who's two-timing two beautiful women,
played by Heather Graham and Natalie Gregson Wagner. Critics find the women's
continued attraction to him implausible and object to the film's lugubrious
dialogue about the futility of love. Downey's character, a self-destructive
liar, reminds critics of Downey himself--a recovering heroin addict. He "has
clearly had a lot of practice trying to explain the unexplainable in 12-step
groups" (David Edelstein,
Slate
). (Click here
for the official site.)
Sliding Doors
(Miramax). Critics debate the merits of the star,
Gwyneth Paltrow, more than anything else in this "slender romantic comedy"
(Stephen Holden, the New York Times ). The Washington Post 's Rita
Kempley calls Paltrow a "fair reminder of the young Audrey Hepburn," but
Entertainment Weekly 's Lisa Schwarzbaum says her "image project[s]
better in fashion-magazine stills than in motion." The film is credited with a
clever conceit (it weaves together two versions of a British PR agent's life)
but is said to suffer from simplistic characters, windy dialogue, and a facile
moral message (life is predestined). (Edelstein
reviews the film in
Slate
. Miramax plugs it here.)
Books
Damascus Gate
, by Robert Stone (Houghton Mifflin). Most critics
say the Outerbridge Reach author's meditation on religious fervor, set
in the Holy Land, comes up short. Stone's thriller about the sojourns of a
half-Jewish, half-Catholic journalist in Jerusalem's Old City is said to cut to
the heart of zealotry. But its take on religion is simple-minded: "In this
novel one is either a messianist or a nonbeliever" (Jonathan Rosen, the New
York Times Book Review ). A few reviewers say he succeeds entirely: "Leave
it to a goy to write the definitive novel about Israel" (Daphne Merkin, The
New Yorker ).
Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous
Victoria Woodhull
, by Barbara Goldsmith (Knopf);
Notorious
Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored
, by Mary Gabriel
(Algonquin). Two biographies--the first serious ones since 1928--win praise for
rescuing the colorful Woodhull (1838-1927) from historical oblivion. Her claims
to fame: A onetime prostitute, she founded a brokerage house, ran for
president, championed free love, and brought down the preacher Henry Ward
Beecher by publicizing a sex scandal involving him. Goldsmith's biography is
deemed novelistic but sensationalist, Gabriel's scholarly but dry. Still unsure
of her significance, critics declare Woodhull "America's most bizarre feminist"
(Francine Du Plessix Gray, The New Yorker ).
Television
Merlin
(NBC; April 26 and 27, 9 p.m. ET/PT). One of the costliest
made-for-TV movies--a telling of the King Arthur legend from the wizard's
perspective--is judged one of the best. It "deserves to be shown annually,"
says Entertainment Weekly 's Ken Tucker. NBC's $30 million expenditure is
said to have paid off, with realistic special effects (fire-breathing dragons,
a talking horse more convincing than Mr. Ed) and all-star performances from Sam
Neill, Helena Bonham Carter, Isabella Rossellini, and Martin Short. Critics are
relieved Merlin has none of the campiness endemic to medieval TV dramas.
(NBC plugs its "television event" here.)
Art
"Alexander Calder: 1898-1976" (National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.). A retrospective rescues the American sculptor from his reputation as the
unsubstantial "user-friendly modernist" (Roberta Smith, the New York
Times ). Reviewers say the show highlights the way Surrealism inspired
Calder's now-forgotten grotesque sculptures from the 1930s. His own
innovations--especially the mobile--are credited with influencing other major
sculptors, including Picasso and David Smith. Critics chalk up Calder's
previous low standing to the abundance of sculptures he made in the '60s for
corporate plazas, which are labeled "mostly boring" (Robert Hughes,
Time ). (Click here
for the National Gallery site.)
Opera
Kirov
Opera (Metropolitan Opera, New York City). Critics applaud the St.
Petersburg-based company's 18 day stint in New York. "Just long enough to leave
the American opera world with a welcome legacy of Russianization," says
Newsday 's Justin Davidson. A spate of profiles heaps praise on the
flamboyant conductor Valery Gergiev, who saved the Kirov financially as Russia
went capitalist. Critics focus on Gergiev's promotion of lesser-known works by
Russian composers and on his unusual arrangements. While "the great orchestras
are all sounding pretty much alike, the Kirov has a character all its own"
(Matthew Gurewitsch, the New York Times ).
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
April
22:
Movie -- Wild Man
Blues ;
Movie -- Object of My
Affection ;
Movie -- Chinese
Box ;
Television -- Seinfeld (NBC);
Book -- Bitch: In
Praise of Difficult Women , by Elizabeth Wurtzel;
Book -- Closed
Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme
Court , by Edward Lazarus;
Art --"Shadows of a Hand: The Drawings of Victor Hugo."
April
15:
Movie -- My
Giant ;
Movie -- City
of Angels ;
Movie -- The Big
One ;
Television -- Brave
New World (NBC);
Book -- Flawed Giant:
Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973 , by Robert Dallek;
Book -- Nat Tate: An
American Artist, 1928-1960 , by William Boyd;
Book -- Quarantine , by Jim Crace;
Theater -- Wait
Until
Dark .
April
8:
Movie -- Lost in
Space ;
Movie -- The Butcher
Boy ;
Movie -- The Spanish
Prisoner ;
Music -- Left of the
Middle , by Natalie Imbruglia;
Television -- Push (ABC);
Television -- Frontline: From Jesus to Christ--The First Christians
(PBS);
Book -- An Instance
of the Fingerpost , by Iain Pears;
Book -- Cavedweller , by Dorothy Allison.
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.
--Franklin Foer
