Anna and the Escapist Fantasy
Movies
Anna and the King
(20 th Century Fox Film
Corp.). Critics bemoan the absence of songs in this latest film depiction of
the romance between British widow Anna Leonowens and King Mongkut of Siam,
familiar to most viewers through the musical The King and I . Critics
contend that leads Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat have weak chemistry and that
the film is "a luxuriant, lumbering behemoth … pleasant, occasionally
amusing--and often dull" (Andy Seiler, USA Today ). Roger Ebert gives a
surprisingly harsh review: "It is an exotic escapist entertainment for matinee
ladies, who can fantasize about sex with that intriguing bald monster and
indulge their harem fantasies" (the Chicago Sun-Times ). Jay Carr of the
Boston Globe dissents from the pack, calling the film "a lot more than
The King and I minus Rodgers's and Hammerstein's music. It's a broader,
wider, deeper, fuller canvas." (Click here for more on the real King Mongkut.)
Bicentennial Man
(Buena Vista Pictures). When Robin
Williams and director Chris Columbus last teamed up, on Mrs. Doubtfire ,
they scored. This time they do not. Based on a short story by Isaac Asimov, the
film follows an android that slowly gains human qualities and ends up as "a
cornball drone of greeting-card sentiment" (Roger Ebert, the Chicago
Sun-Times ). The beginning scenes--when Williams plays a non-human--are the
film's highpoint: "[T]he sad fact is Williams is at his best while trapped in
[the robot's] original sleek form. His performance is subtle, his reactions
restrained. The more Robin is exposed, the more ham is served." Eventually the
film degenerates into "Patch Android " (Susan Wloszczyna, USA
Today ). (Click here for more on Asimov.)
The Cider House Rules
(Miramax). Decent notices for
the first film adaptation of a John Irving novel for which he's deigned to
write the screenplay. Lasse Halström ( What's Eating Gilbert Grape )
directs. USA Today 's Mike Clark calls the coming-of-age story set at an
orphanage in 1940s Maine "passive but passable." Michael Caine's turn as the
benign head of the orphanage (a doctor addicted to ether) is excellent, but
Tobey Maguire, playing the orphan Caine takes under his wing and grooms to be
his successor, is too deadpan for most critics. A few praise the film's
understated pleasures: Richard Corliss of Time calls it "a small epic
with subtle strengths." (Click here to find out more about the book the film is based
on.)
Books
Mailer: A Biography
, by Mary V. Dearborn (Houghton
Mifflin). This unauthorized biography of one of America's feistiest
contemporary authors and public figures draws excellent reviews. Dearborn casts
a cool eye on Mailer's attention-getting tactics (he suggested that soldiers in
Vietnam should only kill people they were willing to eat), his drunken
outbursts, his wife-stabbing episode, and delivers what critics agree is an
evenhanded, engrossing, "crisply written" (Sven Birkerts, Esquire ) book
that will prove difficult for Mailer's official biographer to follow. One
complaint: Dearborn "prefers to get Mailer's contradictions and irrationalities
onto the page as story" instead of exploring the meanings behind them, and she
"likes to knock the stuffing out of [Mailer] when she finds him too
upholstered" (Caleb Crain, the New York Times Book Review ). (The New
York Times ' "featured author" section on Mailer offers an archive of reviews and profiles from the
paper.)
I Gave You All I Had
, by Zoé Valdés, translated by
Nadia Benabid (Arcade). Critics heap praise on Cuban-born Valdés' second novel:
The "rambunctious new novel is an appetizingly rich stew, full of the varied
flavors of Latin culture … sumptuous …exuberantly translated" (Anderson Tepper,
the New York Times Book Review ). Spanning 50 years in the life of a
country girl who moves to Havana, the book is "a messy, passionate indictment
of Fidel Castro's Cuba, packed with grotesque caricatures, implausible crises
and generous dollops of magic realism" (Gabriella Stern, the Wall Street
Journal ). (Read the first chapter here, courtesy of the New York
Times .)
Music
Midnite Vultures
, by Beck (UNI/Geffen/DGC Records).
Rolling Stone , the Washington Times , and just about everyone in
between adore Beck's tribute to '70s funk (with countless '90s styles including
hip-hop and country mixed in). Beck nails the highbrow vote, with Luc Sante's
Village Voice musing that the music has "a texture and effect that is
not far from that of the hand-painted non-collages of James Rosenquist," as
well as the lowbrow vote: USA Today says it "radiates party vibes" (Edna
Gundersen). Other critics rave that "one track after another leaps out at you
until you've got 11 new favorite songs" (David Gates, Newsweek ), and
that it's 1999's "most relentless gas--laughing or otherwise--of a party album"
(Chris Wilman, Entertainment Weekly ). One dissenter takes umbrage at
Beck's heavy borrowing from black music: Mike Jenkins writes in the
Washington Post that the album "can't escape its minstrel-show
undercurrents" and that the album's genre-bending "stunts" sink Beck "deeper in
stylistic debt than he can ever repay." (Click here to listen to clips from the album.)
Snap Judgment
Movie: Stuart
Little
(Columbia Pictures). The digital mouse is cute, but it's
the family cat, voiced by Nathan Lane, whose wisecracking barely keeps this
adaptation of the E.B. White children's classic from becoming intolerable.
Apparently "it's easier to make a mouse talk than to come up with something
interesting for him to say" (Kenneth Turan, the Los Angeles Times ).
