Alan Paton’s classic 1948 novel Cry, The Beloved Country managed to be both political and literary in a century of world literature that often tried to achieve greatness through its politics alone. The French had their existentialists, the Germans their realists, but South Africa had scarcely registered as more than…
In an age when the British Royal Family is more of a sick joke than it is a necessary monarchical body, it would seem to follow that many of Shakespeare’s regal tragedies (Henry IV, Richard II, etc.) become noteworthy for their historical significance even as they lose their obvious relevance…
It’s comforting to think of leadership as an innate ability among certain men and women, a talent much like any other, such as playing the harpsichord or doing long division in your head. “A born leader,” you often hear, as if no training were involved to demonstrate proficiency at it…
There is a scene from the long-awaited film version of Waiting to Exhale, tenderly crafted by director Forest Whitaker, that will take your breath away. Sitting in a hotel bar after being trounced by her soon-to-be ex-husband in preliminary divorce proceedings, Bernadine (Angela Bassett) is captivated by a man’s love–for…
Terry McMillan and Ron Bass are Hollywood’s hot item, collaborators on the most eagerly anticipated movie of the year, even the decade. Waiting to Exhale, McMillan’s book, has sold about three million copies to date, camping out on The New York Times bestseller list for 38 weeks. And Waiting to…
Our topic today is the Woman of Easy Virtue. Bless her little heart. I’ve been hearin’ a lot lately about the big bad Womanizer. Oooooooooooo, what a piece of scummy crud he is. We’ve got Congressional Womanizers, Big-Business Womanizers, Showbiz Womanizers and, of course, the old-fashioned Traveling-Salesman Womanizer. These are…
All right, that’s enough. Let’s stop stealin’ one another’s football teams. I was just gettin’ used to the Carolina Panthers, for God’s sake, and the Jacksonville Jagwires, and now they’re expecting the words “Nashville Oilers” to come out of my mouth? Heck, I still can’t say “Indianapolis Colts,” much less…
Heat, writer-director Michael Mann’s heavy-hitting crime drama, has some eye-catching images, a wonderfully ambiguous mood, and numerous detailed characters ably performed by a great cast. You have to admire the brazen magnitude it’s reaching for, even though the film’s impressive scope ultimately works against it. The central narrative–about the symbiotic…
It’s the old dilemma: Spectacle vs. substance–which do you choose for a movie? Ideally, you choose both–even if in unequal doses. Jurassic Park, for all the backlash it finally endured (ranging from gripes that the special effects dominated the actors to the complaint that there were only 10 minutes of…
White Man’s Burden has a lofty goal: to put the races in the other guy’s shoes. But being released as it is in the wake of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal, White Man’s Burden comes off as a Hollywood knee-jerk take on race–something like those “in-depth,” 300-page “real-story” books released 17 days…
It’s impossible to review a film and not consider the political climate of the country in which it was produced, especially if the movie makes no bones about trying to piss off as many people as possible. This is clearly the mission of filmmaker Greg Araki’s fifth feature The Doom…
As Sabrina opens, a woman’s voice purrs in breathless tones: “On the north shore of Long Island there was a big house–a castle almost,” and it’s clear you’re being set up for a fairy tale. The only thing missing is an overstuffed, gilt-edged, leather-bound book with large gothic letters spelling…
Today I wanna pay tribute to all the guys who are in love with ugly girls. The best thing about them is that they never know the girl is ugly, so it saves the rest of us from a lot of embarrassment in later life. She’ll never find out that…
I wasn’t much of a fan of Sean Penn’s first effort as a writer-director, The Indian Runner. The film, a mood piece about a man’s return from Vietnam and his big brother’s attempts to understand him, had the kind of problems you’d expect from many freshman efforts; it was long…
I have a question about singers: How come they use a microphone when they’re singin’ in a place the size of a Salvation Army bathroom? I mean, you’re sittin’ about four feet from this chantoose and she starts wailing away into about 70 tons of sound equipment until the little…
Although ostensibly a film, Carrington, about painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and her decades-long platonic love affair with writer Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce), is pregnant with literary conceits: the nature of true love as spiritual, not physical; the interdependence of strong creative personalities; the anti-Victorian ethic of early bohemianism. The…
Nick of Time begins with the type of set-up that should be the makings of high drama: The young daughter of drab businessman Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is kidnaped, and will be killed unless he assassinates the governor (Marsha Mason). The difference from any other movie is that this one…
Remember last year when Time and Newsweek both decided to put Marriage on the cover? Marriage Is Back! Marriage Is Groovy! People are Getting Married! And then you read through these articles to try to figure out what the heck they were talkin’ about, and they said things like, “Lewis…
For a film critic to react negatively to the beloved renaissance of Walt Disney animation is something akin to a Catholic priest criticizing Jesus’ personal hygiene–it just ain’t done. Indeed, it’s almost a waste of time (and since we all may be working for that corporate juggernaut in the next…
What can you say about James Bond that hasn’t already been said about Ted Bundy? He’s charming and reckless, well-traveled and intelligent, but half the women he sleeps with end up dead. Sure, Bundy doesn’t have the same beach-boy good looks, but a fast car and $3,000 tux tend to…
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, as God casts him out of paradise, Lucifer declares, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n,” a sentiment not unlike ones expressed by the vicious lowlifes that infest Martin Scorsese’s brilliant new film, Casino. The idea of going legitimate–at least the way normal people…
The 41-year-old Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee has been granted a rare international honor–unanimous box-office approval from audiences who don’t often mix. His second feature, 1993’s The Wedding Banquet, became one of the highest-grossing indie films ever made, and also became a beloved cult treasure that crossed gender, sexual, and ethnic…
