BOOKS & THE ARTS
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Will Smith's 'Hancock' Is Two Bad Movies Combined Into One Terrible Movie
by Christopher Orr
It briefly looked as though the 4th of July might be up for grabs again. For about a decade, this week on the cinematic calendar had been officially unofficially reserved for Will Smith...
Friday, June 27, 2008
The Movie Review: 'Wall·E'
by Christopher Orr
For over a dozen years now, the best name in American film has been Pixar. No movie star, no director, no writer, producer, or studio approaches its level of consistent excellence.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Movie Review: 'Wanted'
by Christopher Orr
Any film that features Angelina Jolie as an international assassin is, pretty much by definition, a film that glamorizes violence. But 'Wanted,' the Hollywood debut of Kazakh-Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, does more than glamorize. It glorifies. It fetishizes. It consecrates.
The oPod Revolution
by Alex Pappademas
A couple years ago, 'GQ' asked John Kerry if he preferred the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Kerry, never one to let an opportunity to appear human or interesting go unblown, refused to express a preference.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Can Celluloid Capture True Love?
by Stanley Kauffmann
Chris & Don: A Love Story (Zeitgeist) My Winnipeg (IFC) 19th Annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Criticisms Of China Have Only Made It Stronger
by Andrew J. Nathan
'Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City' By Lillian M. Li, Alison J. Dray-Novey, and Haili Kong (Palgrave Macmillan, 321 pp., $27.95)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Films Worth Seeing
by Stanley Kauffmann
'Chris and Don': This documentary about Christopher Isherwood and his partner Dan Bachardy, who was thirty years younger, is accomplished with emotional commitment, humor, subtle strength. The aging Don remembers and vivifies his late mentor and lover with affection and detail that recreates their interesting lives.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Nihilism and Capitalism In The Art World: U.S. Museums Are Now Fully-Owned Subsidiaries Of The Market
by Jed Perl
Broad Contemporary Art Museum -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Warning! Mike Myers, International Man Of Mysticism, Is Now Desperately Unfunny.
by Christopher Orr
The velvet suit has been swapped for silk robes. The mop-top has been replaced by Medusan curls of beard and moustache, the artificial overbite by a prosthetic nose. Yes, Mike Myers is back.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Our Critic On Music And The Internet (And Why Radiohead Shouldn't Trick You Into Thinking You Can Rock)
by David Hajdu
The urge to make the work our own is elemental to the act of encountering art, and we try to satisfy it in many ways. We look at a painting or listen to a piece of music and take it in, hoping that it will prove to be not only an expression of human feeling but also a stimulus to it; we expect art to move us in a personal way. Or we buy the artwork...
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Genetic History Of The Jews, And What It Says About Jews Today
by Jerome Groopman
Early in my career as a specialist in blood diseases and cancer, I cared for a middle-aged man who had melanoma. The cancer had pread from an early lesion on his trunk to his lungs, liver, and bones. He was a successful businessman, intelligent and outgoing, with sharp sense of humor. Through the course of his treatment, we developed a warm relationship...
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Genghis Khan, Sensitive Soul: The Poetic Masculinity Of 'Mongol'
by Stanley Kauffmann
Mongol -- Picturehouse
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Movie Review: 'The Happening'
by Christopher Orr
M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, 'The Happening,' is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It's the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: "Do you remember the part when Mark...
The Movie Review: 'The Incredible Hulk'
by Christopher Orr
Louis Leterrier's 'The Incredible Hulk' is not a sequel to Ang Lee's 2003 'Hulk', but it could easily be mistaken for one. After a few minutes of expository flashback, the new movie begins pretty much where the earlier one ended, with scientist Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) hiding out in South America after having suffered a massive radioactive accident...
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