Movies
Six
Days, Seven Nights
(Buena Vista Pictures). Lipstick lesbian Anne Heche
wins praise for her first leading role since coming out. Though some had
doubted she'd make a convincing straight woman, the Washington Post 's
Rita Kempley gibes that "[s]he seems to have mastered the nuances of
heterosexuality." A few reviewers say Heche and co-star Harrison Ford, marooned
together on a tropical island, lack chemistry. Others say comic director Ivan
Reitman ( Ghostbusters ), who made last year's bomb Fathers' Day ,
has lost his touch and is now just recycling old lines and plots.
The
Opposite of Sex
(Sony Pictures Classics). Critics call rookie director
Don Roos' romantic comedy one of the most original in years. "A happy exception
to the rule that any movie with 'sex' in the title must be mediocre" (Andrew
Sarris, the New York Observer ). A precocious 16-year-old, played by
Christina Ricci--"Lolita's evil twin" (Janet Maslin, the New York
Times )--runs off with her gay brother's lover. Reviewers like the
unpredictable plot twists, witty asides about sexual identity, and the casting.
Many predict stardom for Ricci ( The Addams Family and The Ice
Storm ). Dissenters fault the film for turning sentimental at the end.
(Click here for the official site.)
High Art
(October Films). Eighties Brat Packer Ally Sheedy
revives her career playing a cult lesbian photographer. But apart from Sheedy's
melancholic portrayal of the doped-up photographer, the film is said to be
"full of itself and its artistic pretension" (Jack Mathews, the Los Angeles
Times ) and saddled with clichéd depictions of bohemianism. Critics say it
uses saucy lesbian love scenes simply to attract viewers and to make up for its
insubstantial plot.
Theater
Not
About Nightingales
(Alley Theatre, Houston). A long-lost Tennessee
Williams play from 1938 makes its American debut. Critics say it offers fresh
insights into the playwright's tortured mind. They're shocked by the violence
in the 27-year-old's portrait of a prison revolt. "The sensitive Williams would
be the last writer you would associate with this play," says Newsweek 's
Jack Kroll. Detractors call the dialogue overwrought: It "sounds like bad
Tennessee Williams" (Richard Zoglin, Time ).
Television
The
Magic Hour
(click for local listings).Applause for Magic Johnson as a role
model, jeers for Magic Johnson as talk show host. While critics find the
ex-basketball star irresistibly likable, his show "is a crashing bore" (Marvin
Kitman, Newsday ). His monologues are judged clunky and not funny, and
"his mode of interviewing consists mainly of salivating over guests for being
on the show" (Howard Rosenberg, the Los Angeles Times ). It uses the same
A-list of stars who appear on Leno and Letterman, leading critics to wonder,
"How many talk shows does any viewer need?" (Caryn James, the New York
Times ) (Click here for the official site.)
Book
Gain
, by Richard Powers (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Mixed
reviews for the latest from the hyperintellectual author of The Gold Bug
Variations . Powers tries to shed his reputation as inaccessibly scholarly
by writing a straightforward novel about a soap company and an employee who
gets ovarian cancer. Some critics praise his insight into the dark nature of
American business and his riffs on subjects from chemotherapy to free markets.
Others say his characters just deliver long, boring speeches on esoterica. "It
hardly seems fitting ... to call it fiction" (Gail Caldwell, the Boston
Globe ).
Recent
"Summary Judgment" columns
June
10:
Movie -- The Truman
Show ;
Movie -- A Perfect
Murder ;
Movie -- Kurt and
Courtney ;
Television -- Sex
and the City (HBO);
Theater --The Tony
Awards;
Art --"Edward
Burne-Jones, Victorian Artist-Dreamer";
Book -- Cold New World , by William Finnegan.
June
3:
Movie -- The Last
Days of Disco ;
Movie -- Hope
Floats ;
Television -- More
Tales of the City (Showtime);
Television -- A
Bright Shining Lie (HBO) and Thanks of a Grateful Nation
(Showtime);
Art --"Mark
Rothko";
Theater -- Corpus Christi .
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.
--Franklin Foer
