The House Next Door (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
By Charles Taylor The New Yorker used to be in the habit of sending someone to screenings along with their movie critics for the purposes of fact checking. Anthony Lane's latest piece of cocktail chat —it's Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces he's discussing between sips of his martini this week—suggests that tough times at Condé Nast may have led to an abandonment of the practice....
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
How many tales are told in the course of “Broken Embraces,” the new film from Pedro Almodóvar? People keep interrupting themselves, or changing direction, in order to embark upon a story. People, that is, like the screenwriter Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) and his assistant . . .
J's Theater (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
I haven't seen Precious yet. I'm torn; on the one hand I feel I ought to see it, and on the other hand...I recall Sapphire 's extremely disturbing book, Push , which it took every fiber inside me to get through. (And yet the other night Mariah Carey told Larry King she read it twice. Really? Okay. ) I had some issues with the novel, but on the whole I felt the author was telling a story that she felt...
Vulture (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
With The New Yorker 's Anthony Lane and this magazine's David Edelstein already bucking critical status quo with mixed-negative assessments of Lee Daniels' Oscar-contending, Oprah-endorsed Precious , famed New York Press contrarian Armond White must've known he had his work cut out for him. His review went up this afternoon, though, and it does not disappoint! "Shame on Tyer Perry and Oprah Winfrey,"...
Memex 1.1 (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Anthony Lane has a lovely piece in the New Yorker about the new exhibition of Robert Frank’s famous visual study of his adopted country. Here’s how it begins: In June, 1955, Robert Frank bought a car. It was a Ford Business Coupe, five years old, sold by Ben Schultz, of New York. From there, Frank [...]
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
8220;Are you staying or going?” That question, put to the brooding, itinerant Aldo (Steve Cochran), resounds through Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1957 film “Il Grido,” which screens at BAM on Nov. 9. It remains one of his least recognized films but also one of his most . . .
Ultrabrown (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
Two reasons to love the New Yorker this week: 1. Anthony Lane's review of Antichrist. For every promise of affection, there is a snap of wrath, and the woman who declares, "I love you, darling," is the same person who, not long after, fetches a drill to bore a hole in her beloved's leg, plus a pair [...]
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
It would be a shock if “Antichrist” had turned out to be anything but shocking. After all, the giving of offense has long been the stock-in-trade of its writer and director, Lars von Trier, the man who brought us “Breaking the Waves,” “The . . .
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 10/12/2009
The components of “The Shout,” which enjoys a rare screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Oct. 13, Oct. 15, and Oct. 18, could scarcely be more varied. The film, released in 1978, was made in England and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, a Pole. It comes . . .
Opinion Dominion (Free subscription) | 10/11/2009
“The Invention of Lying” movie review : The New Yorker The Anthony Lane review of Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying", a high concept comedy based on the idea that religion is simply a lie, contains this final, somewhat biting, comment: Audiences here should be reminded, at this point, that Gervais found his fame on the BBC, with “The Office” and “Extras,”...
The House Next Door (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
by Tom Elrod (Part of Pixar Week ) The key scene in Pixar's 2006 Cars comes about halfway through, as Lightning McQueen and Sally ride through the countryside and stop on a mountainside above the small, quiet town of Radiator Springs. McQueen notices the nearby superhighway for the first time and the cars on it brushing by the town without even knowing that its there. Sally understands and laments...
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 10/05/2009
The new Ricky Gervais film, “The Invention of Lying,” postulates a world in which no one has ever told a lie. We know this because the hero, Mark Bellison, played by Gervais, tells us all about it in an opening voice-over. It is the first, small warning . . .
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
Among the “Recent Film Acquisitions” at MOMA is “The Lord of the Rings,” which screens there in its entirety on Sept. 25-26. Peter Jackson’s Tolkien trilogy is still a novelty of sorts, released in the first years of the new century; has it really . . .
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
As the title implies, “Coco Before Chanel” is one of those films, like “Young Mr. Lincoln” or “Young Winston,” which invite us to peek into the origins of the notable. These acts of preëmption are lured, by their nature, toward the “ . . .
Conscientious (Free subscription) | 09/09/2009
Even if an edition of New Yorker magazine might contain nothing of real interest (which has been the case more often than not recently), I always make sure to read movie reviews by Anthony Lane, who even on a bad day will always outwit each and every one of the other authors. So I was thrilled to discover a piece by Mr Lane about Robert Frank's "The Americans" in the recent edition of the...
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