- Books: “Verdi’s Shakespeare” review.
In the essays collected here, Wills examines how Verdi—who, though he did not read English, “adored Shakespeare”—composed and staged “Macbeth,” “Otello,” and “Falstaff,” all “solid masterpieces,” and the latter two “arguably the greatest things he . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Forbidden Fruit
The three-week citywide performance-art festival Performa begins next week, opening not with a dinner but with a “food event”: “a series of food installations and happenings,” according to the invitation, “that will lead guests”—Cindy Sherman, Mario Batali—“on . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: A pedicab ride with the actor Jesse Eisenberg.
Who’s the biggest nerd in the movies? Jesse Eisenberg, who played the older brother in “The Squid and the Whale” and starred in “Adventureland,” might seem like an outside contender, but he has three films opening this month—“Solitary Man” (with . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Scousers
Clive Owen fans fall into a few categories. There are those (largely female) who like Owen for his looks. Then there are others (mostly male) who like his grizzled demeanor as an action hero in movies like “The International” and “Children of Men.” He seems rough . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Bohemian, in NoHo.
paragraph class="noindent">New York does exclusivity well, but Tokyo does it better. There is a Japanese phrase, “Ichigensama okotowari,” that’s used by owners of certain discriminating restaurants and shops, and means, roughly, “We respectfully decline first-time visitors.” In other words: walk-ins . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Bohemian, in NoHo.
paragraph class="noindent">New York does exclusivity well, but Tokyo does it better. There is a Japanese phrase, “Ichigensama okotowari,” that’s used by owners of certain discriminating restaurants and shops, and means, roughly, “We respectfully decline first-time visitors.” In other words: walk-ins . . ....
- David Denby: “The Iron Lady,” “War Horse,” “Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol” reviews.
As Margaret Thatcher in old age— confined to her home and afflicted with dementia—Meryl Streep turns senescence into poetry. Apart from the great Lear interpreters, Streep, in “The Iron Lady,” has given us the best impression we’ve had of a potentate suffering from . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Trotsky”
8220;I hate Trotsky!” Winston Churchill told the Soviet Ambassador in 1938. “It’s a very good thing that Stalin has got even with him.” Trotsky, even before one of Stalin’s agents found him in Mexico and assassinated him with an ice axe, was . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: France’s First Lady takes a tour of N.Y.U.
The other day, students in New York University’s visual-arts program received an e-mail advising them to be in their studios the following Monday afternoon. “They said that somebody famous was coming,” Robert Leonardi, a senior, recalled, “and that anything could happen.” A . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: The Leopard at des Artistes.
8220;If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change,” says a young aristocrat in “The Leopard,” the 1958 book by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the 1963 Visconti movie, about the decline of the Italian ruling class during the Risorgimento. It . . ....
- Anthony Lane: “Robin Hood.”
What do you get if you mix “Gladiator,” “The Return of Martin Guerre,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Elizabeth,” “Troy,” “The Seventh Seal,” and a hundred buckets of mud? The answer is “Robin Hood”—the latest version . . ....
- John Lahr: “All’s Well That Ends Well” and “Measure for Measure”
8220;The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together,” one of the courtiers in “All’s Well That Ends Well” says in a piece of throwaway brilliance that reveals Shakespeare’s argument and his theatrical game. The ever-changing . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Matador tailor Justo Algaba and the Metropolitan Opera’s “Carmen.”
Justo Algaba, one of the world’s most respected matador tailors, was in town the other day from Madrid, where he has a two-story shop devoted to the production of matador outfits, called trajes de luce (“suits of light”), because of their shimmery, multicolored adornments. Algaba . . ....
- Anthony Lane: “The Avengers,” “Headhunters” reviews.
If you are a Marvel fan, then “The Avengers” will feel like Christmas. Thanks to the merry doings of the director, Joss Whedon, all your favorite characters are here, as shiny and as tempting as presents under the tree. You get Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man . . ....
- Anthony Lane: “Soul Kitchen” and “Centurion.”
Food movies are an acquired taste. I have lost count of all the lip-smackers, the heart-warmers, and the spicy-noodle-slurpers, not to mention such molar-wrecking fables as “Chocolat” and “Like Water for Chocolate.” Few of them endure in the digesting mind longer . . ....
- Anthony Lane: The long, strange history of 3-D.
Did you enjoy “Rottweiler”? How about “Bwana Devil” or “Black Lolita”? Maybe you preferred “International Stewardesses,” although you might know it under the more thoughtful title of “Supersonic Supergirls.” You will not need reminding that these are among the crowning . . ....
- Anthony Lane: “Nine,” “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” “The Young Victoria,” and “A Single Man.”
The beginning of “Nine” feels like an end. The first words we hear are “You kill your film,” uttered at a press conference by an Italian movie director named Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis). We then find him at the Cinecittà film studios, in Rome . . ....
- Hilton Als: “Sleep No More,” at the McKittrick Hotel.
Even though the shadowy, mannered, and morally terrible world that Alfred Hitchcock created as a young filmmaker in pre-Second World War Britain and Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” provide some of the inspiration for “Sleep No More” (a Punchdrunk production, in collaboration with Emursive, at the . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Van Cleef & Arpels diamonds on display.
Paris, France, sometime in the nineteen-fifties. A woman walks into Van Cleef & Arpels and falls in love with a diamond necklace. It’s expensive—say, four hundred thousand francs. “Listen,” she tells the jeweller, “tomorrow I’m going to come with my . . ....
- David Denby: “Source Code” and “Meek’s Cutoff.”
8220;Source Code,” a techno-thriller about a dead man who tries to save Chicago from nuclear destruction, is much more enjoyable than “Inception,” “The Adjustment Bureau,” “Limitless,” and other fantastical jaunts of recent seasons. The movie may begin as a sci-fi . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Kids get real on MTV’s “Skins.”
Six years ago, in Bristol, England, the television writer Bryan Elsley was brainstorming ideas for a new series—cop show? courtroom drama?—and he approached his nineteen-year-old son, Jamie Brittain, for advice. The response was tough but useful. “He basically told me all my ideas . . ....
- David Denby: “True Grit,” “The Company Men,” “Somewhere,” and “The Tempest.”
In “True Grit,” the Coen brothers’ enjoyably astringent remake of the maudlin John Wayne Western from 1969, the characters all speak in formal diction. They abjure contractions (typical sentence: “He has abandoned me to a congress of louts”), and they avoid the fanciful, “fuck . . . (Subscription required.)...
- David Denby: “True Grit,” “The Company Men,” “Somewhere,” and “The Tempest.”
In “True Grit,” the Coen brothers’ enjoyably astringent remake of the maudlin John Wayne Western from 1969, the characters all speak in formal diction. They abjure contractions (typical sentence: “He has abandoned me to a congress of louts”), and they avoid the fanciful, “fuck . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi: “Gilgul.”
8220;You know,” she said almost shyly, “that I have the ability, if you wish, to look into your eyes and tell you when you will die?”
“No, I didn’t realize you could do that.” He hesitated for a moment. “And I . . . (Subscription required.)...
- George Saunders: “Escape from Spiderhead.”
8220;Drip on?” Abnesti said over the P.A.
“What’s in it?” I said.
“Hilarious,” he said.
“Acknowledge,” I said.
Abnesti used his remote. My MobiPak™ whirred. Soon the Interior Garden looked really nice. Everything seemed super-clear.
I said out . . ....
- Eric Konigsberg: Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press, in the U.N.
What’s the proper honorific to use when addressing a diplomat at the United Nations? Mr. (or Madame) Ambassador? Your Excellency? For Matthew Russell Lee, acceptable options include “Hey, man!,” “C’est bon, isn’t it?,” and “Are you the chargé . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Anthony Lane: “Bad Teacher,” “Terri,” and “The Names of Love.”
Waiting for “Bad Teacher” to begin, I caught a trailer for the upcoming “Horrible Bosses.” What is it with these titles? Studios may think that they can palm us off with flat, sour recitations of what their products contain, but, back in 1975, no one would . . ....
- Anthony Lane: “The Debt” and “Gainsbourg.”
The first twenty minutes of “The Debt” are a mess. We flash back and forward in time, flit from one location to the next, and soon arrive at the conclusion that the director, John Madden, must have pressed “Shuffle” rather than “Play.” Gradually, things . . ....
