- David Denby: “The Adventures of Tintin,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” reviews.
You can’t take your eyes off Rooney Mara as the notorious Lisbeth Salander, in the American movie version of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (opening December 21st). Slender, sheathed in black leather, with short ebony hair standing up in a tuft . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Readings and Talks
goatTitle-->92ND STREET Y
Eva Gabrielsson was Stieg Larsson’s partner for more than thirty years. On June 23 at 8:15, she talks about life with the late Swedish novelist. She will be interviewed by Gloria Steinem. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500.)
“NORMAN MANEA: A . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret mysteries and literary hard novels.
Those who know anything about Georges Simenon usually know at least three things. The first is that he divided his energies between detective novels and “straight” novels. The former made him one of the highest-earning writers in the world in the mid-twentieth century, and barred him . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Paul McCartney, “Ocean Kingdom,” and New York City Ballet.
New York City Ballet is running a deficit of about five million dollars, on an operating budget of sixty million, and, as young people brought up on YouTube and Facebook come to rely less on live performance, and high culture, the company’s administrators fear that they may see . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: American Ballet Theatre’s “Duets.”
When Mikhail Baryshnikov became the director of American Ballet Theatre, in 1980, one of his dearest hopes was to add modernist works, that rarity in his homeland, to the company’s rather stuffy repertory. He did so (over loud protests—many A.B.T. fans were quite happy with “ . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Doll Face
This week, at La Mama, the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre presents “Twelfth Night,” for sixteen marionettes performing on three tea trays (the beach, Orsino’s palace, and Olivia’s house). This sounds pretty camp, but, in fact, it’s an entirely respectable piece of modernism . . ....
- Elizabeth Kolbert: Should you eat meat?
Americans love animals. Forty-six million families in the United States own at least one dog, and thirty-eight million keep cats. Thirteen million maintain freshwater aquariums in which swim a total of more than a hundred and seventy million fish. Collectively, these creatures cost Americans some forty billion dollars . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Alexei Ratmansky and A.B.T., at Avery Fisher Hall.
People love Alexei Ratmansky’s work because it is both classical (you can see all the ballet steps—they’re not slurred) and psychological, conveying some recognizable emotion or situation. Ratmansky should be treasured for his double gift, which has been the mark of all great ballet . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Mark Morris’s “Four Saints in Three Acts,” at BAM.
Sometimes sophistication looks like naïveté. Gertrude Stein’s text for the mini-opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” is both stylish and childlike, like so much of her work. Ditto Virgil Thomson’s score, simultaneously Frenchy and American, with snatches of rags and . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”
The third and final installment of Larsson’s engrossing posthumous series finds the defiant, punked-out, inked-up girl hacker Lisbeth Salander under arrest in a Swedish hospital bed, a bullet removed from her skull and, down the hall, a threatening co-patient—her father—plotting her . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Leslie Zemeckis’s “Behind the Burly Q.”
paragraph class="noindent">Boy, are the Cultural Studies people going to love this: “Behind the Burly Q,” a new DVD release (First Run Features) of Leslie Zemeckis’s 2010 movie on the history of burlesque. Burlesque, which peaked in the nineteen-thirties, was basically a variety show . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Croce and Mueller on Fred and Ginger.
Arlene Croce’s “The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book” (1972) not only anatomized the dance routines that the peerless couple performed in their movies. It also taught readers how to understand dance itself, a rare skill—indeed, a rare ambition—at that time. The . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Croce and Mueller on Fred and Ginger.
Arlene Croce’s “The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book” (1972) not only anatomized the dance routines that the peerless couple performed in their movies. It also taught readers how to understand dance itself, a rare skill—indeed, a rare ambition—at that time. The . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: David Hallberg in Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
David Hallberg, of American Ballet Theatre, has spent a lot of time in “prince” roles. You can see why. He is six feet one and blindingly handsome, and also—a rare feature—extremely sweet. That’s nice, but you have to wonder: Is there a . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Frederick Wiseman’s “Ballet” at MOMA.
In Frederick Wiseman’s “Ballet” (1995), a documentary on American Ballet Theatre, Agnes de Mille, in a wheelchair, rehearses her final piece, “The Other.” “You must look like something that’s absolutely broken, and stuck up in the wind,” she tells Amanda . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Mark Morris’s Brooklyn season.
When Mark Morris was a teen-ager, he and his friends, after school, used to go to parking lots, where no one would bother them, and practice singing: clapping songs, rounds, anything that was like a game. Morris never lost this love for vocal music. By now, he has choreographed . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Twyla Tharp’s “Come Fly Away.”
A man leans over a woman’s rib cage as if he were going to take a bite out of her clavicle. The woman, in high heels, stands in arabesque on the man’s thigh long enough to sink a hole in it. These maneuvers are from Twyla . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Alexei Ratmansky, the most sought-after man in ballet.
When Alexei Ratmansky, the artist-in-residence at American Ballet Theatre, walks into a room, what you notice first is his carriage, the high, open chest. Once a ballet dancer, always a ballet dancer. Otherwise, he’s a regular-looking forty-two-year-old man: medium height, nice face . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Doris Humphrey at “Dance
on Camera.”
In Doris Humphrey’s work, as in much of early-twentieth-century modern dance, there’s a lot of scarf-waving, to show us the aspirations of the human spirit, but Humphrey’s choreography looks far less dated than her contemporaries’, because, as her biographer Marcia . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Doris Humphrey at “Dance
on Camera.”
In Doris Humphrey’s work, as in much of early-twentieth-century modern dance, there’s a lot of scarf-waving, to show us the aspirations of the human spirit, but Humphrey’s choreography looks far less dated than her contemporaries’, because, as her biographer Marcia . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Cirque du Soleil’s “Banana Shpeel.”
In the old days, a circus was a big variety show, made up of acts—the lion tamer, the fire-eater—m.c.’d by a ringmaster in a top hat, and presented munificently in three rings, so that you could choose what to look at. Then came . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Sofie Krog Teater’s “The House,” at HERE.
8220;All this will be mine!” exclaims Flora, gazing around at the nice, big funeral home she lives in. It’s the property of her husband’s aunt, Mrs. Esperanza, but Flora plans to fix that. What she needs is to get her lunkhead husband to do . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: New York’s battle of “The Nutcracker.”
It’s not as though New York has never seen a battle of the “Nutcracker”s before, but this year’s forces are especially splendid. At New York City Ballet (through Jan. 2), there is Balanchine’s version, the most famous in the world, and . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Robert Battle and the Alvin Ailey troupe after “Revelations.”
The dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre are thrilling, and the dances they do are mostly sentimental and conventional. There are exceptions, notably the company’s signature work, “Revelations” (1960), set to spirituals. This piece is relentlessly programmed by the Ailey troupe. During the present season . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Joan Acocella: Rocío Molina at the Flamenco Festival.
When you see a great dancer for the first time, it can be a confusing experience. She may be off her feed that night. And you don’t necessarily trust what you saw. But now and then you have the boing! experience. Your eye moves across the stage, and . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Sets from Balanchine, at the Drawing Center.
Balanchine didn’t care much about the visual arts. There’s a story that Lincoln Kirstein, who founded New York City Ballet with him, once invited him to go to a museum. “No thanks,” Balanchine said. “I’ve been to a museum.” Today . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Michael Blackwood’s “New York Dance: States of Performance.”
If you’ve ever come out of a dance concert wondering what those people thought they were doing, you should see Michael Blackwood’s new film, “New York Dance: States of Performance,” in which seven highly regarded choreographers—Beth Gill, Christopher Wheeldon, Ann Liv Young . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Mark Morris’s “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.”
Mark Morris’s “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” (1988), based on poems by Milton and paintings by Blake, and set to an oratorio by Handel, is widely considered one of the great dance works of the twentieth century. In the course of its thirty . . ....
