There is a new shot in the movies and it deserves attention. In truth, it has been around for some time, but meaning can take a while to sink in. The first time I felt its possibility was in the late ’50s, reading Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park. The narrator of that novel is Sergius O’Shaughnessy, who has been a first lieutenant in the Air Force. Stationed in Tokyo, he performed over Korea. “Sometimes on tactical missions we would lay fire bombs into Oriental villages. READ MORE >>
Argo Before Argo
"Wag the Dog" was the Hollywood Satire Ben Affleck Should Have Made
So there I was the other evening, mulling over the oddities of Argo and Zero Dark Thirty and wondering if the affection for Ben Affleck could get his strange movie to be Best Picture, when a lot of truths were revealed to me. READ MORE >>
Not Every Scandal Needs a Movie
The Only Good Lance Armstrong Film Would Star Lance Himself
All right, I’m ready to go quietly; well, not quite quietly; still, I am prepared to surrender. If I had ever been a member of any of the circles of film critics, I would abjure that allegiance now. Deport me if you like: I will share an open boat with Piers Morgan. We can interview each other as we row across the Atlantic. But I do not want to have to see Al Pacino playing Joe Paterno. READ MORE >>
'Parade’s End': Ford Madox Ford’s Masterpiece Comes to the Screen
'Downton Abbey' for grown-ups
Imagine the production values of "Downton Abbey" aimed at a grown-up audience. Think of a movie being five hours long, but made for television. Consider the possibility that after the feeble adaptation he did recently for Anna Karenina, Tom Stoppard has fashioned a script with his customary wit and cunning. Just wait for the babble of the awards season to die, and prepare for an event in television history and a real British movie. READ MORE >>
Django Unchained Is All Talk With Nothing to Say
"Zero Dark Thirty" Has All the Depth of a John Wayne Movie
May I suggest an amendment to the Constitution? It should be as illegal as it is misleading to open a movie with any statement about its being “based on fact.” That very assertion precedes Zero Dark Thirty, the new picture by Kathryn Bigelow, which has already won several critics’ awards and must be in the running for the Best Picture Oscar. READ MORE >>
Richard Burton Was a Great Writer
The Richard Burton DiariesEdited by Chris Williams (Yale University Press, 693 pp., $35) JUNE 14, 1969, and for a dawn moment he was calm, remembering Wordsworth and Dylan Thomas: “I love my wife. I love her dearly. Honest. Talk about the beauty, silent, bare.... Sitting on the Thames with the river imitating a blue-grey ghost. My God the very houses seem asleep. And all that mighty heart is lying still.” READ MORE >>
