Movies
He
Got Game
(Buena Vista Pictures). Critics rank Spike Lee's Oedipal
basketball drama--starring Denzel Washington as a convict and the NBA's Ray
Allen as his estranged son--at the top of his oeuvre . After paying Lee's
recent films scant attention, they declare him "underrated" and "overlooked"
(Janet Maslin, the New York Times ). They're pleased to find that Allen
can act, that Washington has a mean streak, and that Lee critiques capitalism
more than he does racism. Dissenters gripe about cheap high-mindedness,
especially the caricatures of money-grubbing sports agents. (Click here for David
Edelstein's review in
Slate
and here for the official
site.)
Les
Misérables
(Columbia Pictures). The 18 th film version of
Victor Hugo's novel, this one from Danish director Bille August, wins modest
praise despite its familiar story and conventional telling. Strong performances
are credited: Geoffrey Rush uses the prosecutor Javert as a portrait of
zealotry, and Liam Neeson makes the prisoner Valjean, a character without a
"recognizable human flaw," seem complex (Jay Carr, the Boston Globe ).
Others praise the film's slow European pace as an antidote to Hollywood's manic
style. Detractors complain it's just plain boring. (Here is
the official site. And a recent "Summary
Judgment" has an item on Hugo chic.)
Summer
Movie Roundup. Few summer movies are even trying to duplicate
Titanic 's success, the Hollywood press reports. "The studios sensibly
scaled down" in the wake of the Christmastime smash hit, says Time 's
Richard Corliss. Variety 's Dan Cox forecasts fewer action flicks and
"more offbeat weepies than usual." Highly touted are Steven Spielberg's World
War II drama Saving Private Ryan (starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon) and
Peter Weir's satiric The Truman Show , about a man (Jim Carrey) whose
entire life is televised. The exception is a remake of Godzilla from the
creators of Independence Day ; critics predict it will be the summer
box-office champ.
Television
Newsmagazine Roundup. Rumors that ABC and NBC may replace their nightly
news shows with prime-time newsmagazines trigger laments about the genre's
decline. NBC's tabloidy Dateline , already on four times a week, is
called "as close to local TV news as anything the networks have yet come up
with" (Richard Zoglin, Time ). Meanwhile, a highly praised PBS
documentary about 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt prompts critics to note
that show's downfall as well. Citing Andy Rooney's dithering commentaries and a
story bashing gay studies, Entertainment Weekly declares the once
high-minded CBS show "alarmingly behind the times."
Books
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation
Saved Hollywood
, by Peter Biskind (Simon & Schuster). As 1970s
American cinema enjoys a critical renaissance, reviewers lap up the gossip in a
book about its groundbreaking directors. Reviewers share the author's view that
these auteurs--including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, William
Friedkin, and Paul Schrader--reinvented American cinema with their gritty
dramas but arrogantly overindulged in drugs and sex. Some critics rant about
present-day Hollywood: "[F]ew of the films of the earlier era would get the
green light today," says USA Today 's Susan Wloszczyna. (Excerpts are
available here.)
The
Communist Manifesto
, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (Verso). The
left-wing publishing house Verso has reissued the classic of political
philosophy on its 150 th anniversary, marketing the book at chic
clothiers as "an accessory, a stocking-stuffer, a badge of consummate
capitalist cool" (Barbara Ehrenreich, Salon ). Left-wing reviewers stress
the tract's continued relevance as a critique of labor relations, while
conservatives redefine Marx and Engels as prophets of capitalism who respected
the economy's dynamism and strength. Scholarly reviewers honor it as "an
enduring masterpiece that immediately catches up readers in its transpersonal
force and sweep" (Steven Marcus, the New York Times
Book
Review ).
Theater
The
Judas Kiss
(Broadhurst Theatre, New York City). Liam Neeson brings
Oscar Wilde chic to Broadway in a new play by British playwright David Hare,
but critics are unimpressed. The brawny Neeson "is a calamity" as Wilde, says
New York's John Simon. Hare's script is faulted for making Wilde
inhumanly noble and for blaming Wilde's celebrated fall entirely on his lover,
Lord Alfred Douglas. The revival of interest in Wilde--another play about him
( Gross Indecency ) and a new movie ( Wilde )--continues to delight
critics. "All that's missing ... are the dashboard statuettes and the black
velvet portraits," says Time 's Walter Kirn.
Recent
Summary Judgment columns
April
29:
Movie -- Two Girls
and a Guy ;
Movie -- Sliding
Doors ;
Book -- Damascus
Gate , by Robert Stone;
Book -- 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).
Television -- Merlin (NBC);
Art --"Alexander
Calder: 1898-1976";
Opera --Kirov Opera.
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.
--Franklin Foer
