Don't Bother
[See “Our Childless Dystopia” in The New Atlantis of Winter, 2007, under “Articles”]
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Waiting for Guffman is the cheapest of cheap comedy. All it takes is our suspension of disbelief (easy in New York and L.A.) that the rubes in fly-over country could be as witless and unhip as they are presented as being here. Hip is our new class marker: snobbery on the basis of race or…
If, as I believe, the new media aristocracy is essentially the aristocracy of feeling, then Johnny Depp is the crown prince. Was ever a face more perfectly constructed to express our turn-of-the-century ideal of a fine vulnerability, a noble sensitivity to every emotional breeze that ripples its surface? Unfortunately, with looks like his there are…
The Lost World: Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg is virtually indistinguishable from the original of four years ago—and indeed from most other Spielbergian products, particularly in their emphasis on wise or clever or dexterous children rescuing their parents and in their environmental message. Indeed, the most curious thing about the whole film is that it…
In The Pledge Sean Penn (director) and Jack Nicholson (star) have teamed up to give us a portrait of the hero as “a drunk and a clown” — which has a certain appropriateness, I suppose. There’s even a part for Mickey Rourke here — to say nothing of cameo roles for such actors as Tom…
Costa-Gavras — with the help of Rolf Hochhuth — delivers a stinging indictment of the Catholic church’s part in the Holocaust. You were expecting, maybe, exoneration?
A charming, amusing but also moving account of the making of Peter Pan
