Movies
The
Last Days of Disco
(Gramercy Pictures). A modestly warm reception for
the last installment in director Whit Stillman's trilogy (following
Metropolitan and Barcelona ) about neurotic, hypereducated young
WASPs. Critics forgive the incoherence of the film--set in early '80s New York,
in a nightclub modeled on the legendary Studio 54--and lap up the characters'
witty exegeses of yuppie culture. "Stillman is the Balzac of the ironic class,"
says the Washington Post 's Stephen Hunter. Others claim Stillman's
semiautobiographical musings on the decline of the WASP have long been
exhausted of insight. (Click here for the official site.)
Hope Floats
(20 th Century Fox). Critics find
Waiting to Exhale director Forest Whitaker's latest chick flick guilty
of the genre's worst defects: tear-jerking melodrama, shots of little girls
with stuffed animals, and the "emotional range of a sympathy card" (Roger
Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times ). Some predict that Sandra Bullock's
performance--as a prom queen who returns to her hometown after her husband
cheats on her--will only deepen her midcareer funk. Crooner Harry Connick Jr.
is also judged charmless. Some reviewers endorse the film as benign summer fare
with "nary a car chase, explosion or loaded weapon" (Leah Rozen,
People ). (To download the trailer, click here.)
Television
More
Tales of the City
(Showtime; June 7 and 8, 9 p.m. ET/PT). Like its
predecessor, the second film made from an Armistead Maupin novel about gay San
Francisco sparks controversy. Critics attack PBS's timid refusal to air More
Tales , even though the 1994 original was one of its highest rated programs
ever. Still, they admit the sequel isn't that great. While full of delightfully
quirky characters (peeping Toms, Scientologists), it is also "undeniably
reminiscent of daytime soap opera" ( People ). (Click here for the official site.)
A
Bright Shining Lie
(HBO) and
Thanks of a Grateful Nation
(Showtime). Two docudramas about military cover-ups win praise for their high
quality but criticism for playing fast and loose with the facts. Journalist
David Halberstam and former Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg, who are
characters in Shining Lie , complain that the Vietnam film distorts the
nonfiction book it is based on. Grateful Nation is said to present a
powerful but one-sided argument for the existence of the "Gulf War syndrome"
that many vets claim afflicts them.
Art
"Mark
Rothko" (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Critics argue over the
meaning of the Abstract Expressionist's famous floating rectangles. "Like
Seinfeld ," the Washington Post 's Jo Ann Lewis asks, "are they
about nothing?" Some declare Rothko a pure painter who was concerned only with
color. Others insist he self-consciously aimed to represent emotions and
landscapes. A few interpret the dark hues of his later works as a reflection of
his own tragic life, which ended in alcoholism and suicide. (Click here to read Christopher
Benfey's review in
Slate
.)
Theater
Corpus Christi
, by Terrence McNally (Manhattan Theatre Club). The
press rallies to the Pulitzer Prize winner's defense on hearing that the
Manhattan Theatre Club was canceling his play about a gay Jesus. Though the
theater relented when Arthur Miller, Wendy Wasserstein, and other top
playwrights howled, most critics still paint the incident as a free-speech
outrage. "American theater has surrendered to thugs," charges the New York
Times ' Frank Rich. Conservatives retort that liberals would never tolerate
similar bigotry aimed at beliefs sacred to Jews or blacks. "A so-called work of
art that maligns Jesus is an affront that warrants protest by every legal
means. If that's censorship, so be it" (Bill Reel, Newsday ). (Click
here to read Jon
Robin Baitz's take on the controversy in
Slate
's "Diary.")
Updates
While
conservatives bash Bulworth for its political correctness, The Nation
likens it to Citizen Kane . "Like [Orson] Welles, [Warren] Beatty brings
to this production a history of left-liberal politics and an admiration for
black musicians," says Stuart Klawans. ...
New York Times Book
Review Editor Charles McGrath, a former deputy to William Shawn at the
New Yorker , calls Lillian
Ross' memoir about her affair with Shawn "on occasion factually inaccurate
or misleading" and "a betrayal of Shawn's high editorial principles. ... [S]ome
of it would almost certainly have made him wince."
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
May
28:
Movie -- Godzilla ;
Movie -- Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas ;
Movie --Cannes Film
Festival Roundup;
Book -- Freedomland , by Richard Price;
Books -- Remembering
Mr. Shawn's "New Yorker": The Invisible Art of Editing , by Ved Mehta;
Here But Not Here: A Love Story , by Lillian Ross;
Television -- The Larry Sanders Show (Showtime).
May
20:
Death --Frank
Sinatra;
Television -- Seinfeld finale;
Movie -- Bulworth ;
Movie -- The Horse
Whisperer ;
Book -- The
Everlasting Story of Nory , by Nicholson Baker;
Book -- Cities of the
Plain , by Cormac McCarthy;
Book -- Identity , by Milan Kundera, translated by Linda Asher.
May
13:
Movie-- Deep
Impact ;
Movie-- Character ;
Music-- Into the Sun ,
by Sean Lennon;
Book-- Titan: The Life and
Times of John D. Rockefeller , by Ron Chernow;
Book-- The Time of Our
Time , by Norman Mailer;
Book-- A
Widow for One Year , by John Irving.
May
6:
Movie -- He Got
Game ;
Movie -- Les
Misérables ;
Movie --Summer Movie
Roundup;
Television --Newsmagazine Roundup;
Book -- Easy Riders,
Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved
Hollywood , by Peter Biskind;
Book -- The Communist
Manifesto , by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels;
Theater -- The Judas Kiss .
--Franklin Foer
