Movies
Shakespeare in
Love
(Miramax Films). It's the critics who are in love: Gwyneth Paltrow
is gorgeous, Joseph Fiennes is dashing, and the movie is "smart and giddily
entertaining" (David Ansen, Newsweek ). Fiennes' young Will Shakespeare
has an affair with Paltrow's character that becomes the basis for Romeo and
Juliet . Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman's screenplay is full of amusing
references to Shakespeare plays, but is not so erudite that it won't please
crowds, and the dialogue "percolates with bubbly finesse" (Owen Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly ). The New Yorker 's David Denby puts a slight
damper on the general festivities: He says the film starts out muddled, though
it livens up by the end. (Check out stills
from the film on this page, and read David Edelstein's pan in
Slate
.)
Star Trek:
Insurrection
(Paramount Pictures). Critics say the ninth installment in
the Star Trek franchise unfolds like a two hour episode of the TV
series--"as warm and cozy as a pair of tribble fur-lined Spock ears on a cold
winter's night" (Michael O'Sullivan, the Washington Post ). The action
takes place on a planet whose fountain of youth properties make it the envy of
malicious neighbors. Critics say insiders will laugh at the inside jokes and
not mind the low-tech special effects. Everyone else will find the film hokey
and overburdened with "pseudoscientific terminology" (Jay Carr, the Boston
Globe ). (Read
Edelstein's review in
Slate
, and visit the official Star Trek site, where
you can buy Star Trek mugs, posters, and Christmas cards.)
Rushmore
(Buena Vista Pictures). "[B]lessed with a vivid sense of humor and an artistic
integrity unlike those of any other American filmmaker working today" is how
Entertainment Weekly 's Lisa Schwarzbaum describes the work of writing
team Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson (who also paired up on the 1996 underground
hit Bottle Rocket ). The film, directed by Anderson, follows newcomer
Jason Schwartzman as a dorky, overachieving high-school kid who competes with
Bill Murray for a teacher's affections. The film is "from deep in left
field--immaculately written, unexpectedly touching" and is full of "exuberance
and innocence" (Jeff Giles, Newsweek ). A few complain that the movie
lags, and New York 's Peter Rainier criticizes it for "callowness."
(Visit the
"Bill Murray Action News" page, which follows the actor's every move.)
A Simple
Plan
(Paramount Pictures). Sam Raimi's dark morality fable impresses
the critics: It's a "rivetingly accomplished crime thriller" (Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly ). As two brothers who happen on millions of dollars
in a plane that's crashed into a snow bank, Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton
turn in performances that "can be described only as flawless" (Roger Ebert, the
Chicago Sun-Times ). The reviewers have some reservations: The moral
deterioration of the characters is hard to watch, and the inevitability of the
plot's outcome can be stifling. But the overall verdict is that the director
has a sure hand. (
Slate
's David Edelstein likes the film but
calls some of the plot devices "a bit cheap." Read the rest of his review
here.)
Jack Frost
(Warner Bros.). This film about a man reincarnated as a snowman so that he may
comfort his grieving son is said to be "treacly and fake" (Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly ). The animatronic snowman (with Michael Keaton's
voice) looks like a "large, wisecracking marshmallow man" (the New York
Times ) and is described by Ebert as "the most repulsive single creature in
the history of special effects." ("Never have I disliked a movie character
more," Ebert adds.) USA
Today 's Mike Clark calls the last hour of
the film "brain-damaging." The Wall Street Journal 's Joe Morgenstern,
the film's only fan, praises its "sweet spirit and astute humor." (Visit the official site.)
Television
The
Tempest
, by William Shakespeare (NBC; Sunday, Dec. 13). NBC racks up
another bust. This loose Civil War-era adaptation of Shakespeare's
Tempest is called "[a] miscalculation of epic proportions ... at times
laugh-out-loud awful, at times offensive" (Daryl H. Miller, the Los Angeles
Times ). The film uses only two lines of Shakespeare's actual poetry (but is
otherwise peppered with cheesy "I reckon"s). Peter Fonda, who plays the
Prospero equivalent, is called "stone-faced and clueless" (Steve Parks,
Newsday ). (
Read this interview with Fonda.)
Theater
The Blue
Room
, by David Hare (Cort Theatre, New York City). Nicole Kidman bares
all! Who cares what David Hare did with Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde
when there's celebrity flesh to be drooled over? American critics! They receive
the play coldly, even though the Broadway run is almost sold out. The New
York Times ' Ben Brantley calls The Blue Room "a deft, efficient and
sometimes amusing piece of work ... [t]he entire evening is not unlike Kidman's
much-discussed body: smooth, pale, and slender." Other critics say the play has
"outlived [its] raciness" (David Patrick Stearns, USA Today ). Although
La Ronde was banned at the turn of the century, nowadays its account of
sexual encounters among various characters (all played by Kidman and her
co-star Iain Glen) seems pretty tame. The play is "an aesthetic non-event, an
anticlimax of proportions inevitably commensurate with its avalanche of advance
publicity" (Charles Isherwood, Daily Variety ). (Order tickets to the show
online.)
Recent "Summary Judgment" columns
Dec.
9:
Movie -- Psycho ;
Movie
--Central Station ;
Movie -- Hard Core Logo ;
Movie -- Little Voice ;
Book -- Amsterdam , by Ian McEwan;
Art --"Edo: Art in Japan 1615-1868" (National Gallery of Art,
Washington);
Theater -- Electra , by Sophocles (Ethel Barrymore Theater, New
York City).
Dec.
2:
Movie -- Babe: Pig in the
City ;
Movie -- Home Fries ;
Movie -- Jerry Springer: Ringmaster ;
Movie -- Very Bad Things ;
Theater -- On the Town ;
Book -- The Rum Diary: The Long Lost
Novel , by Hunter S. Thompson.
Nov. 25:
Movie -- Enemy of the
State;
Movie --The Rugrats Movie;
Movie -- Waking Ned
Devine ;
Movie -- A Bug's
Life ;
Book -- I Will Bear Witness: A
Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 , by Victor Klemperer;
Book -- American Beach: A Saga
of Race, Wealth, and Memory , by Russ Rymer;
Television -- Winchell (HBO).
Nov. 18:
Movie -- Meet Joe
Black ;
Movie -- Celebrity ;
Movie -- I'll Be Home for
Christmas ;
Movie -- I Still Know What You
Did Last Summer ;
Movie -- Dancing at
Lughnasa ;
Book -- Fashionable Nonsense:
Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science , by Alan Sokal and Jean
Bricmont;
Music -- Spirit , by
Jewel.
