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Richard Brody looks at the life lessons of Harmony Korine’s movie, “Spring Breakers”: http://nyr.kr/147yiVT
(Source: newyorker.com)
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“Stoker”: The Fears and Fantasies of Everyteen
“Stoker” is fundamentally a gothic horror story about the devastating power of secrets: India has been protected from ugliness by parents of good will, who keep it hidden; but the dark, suppressed knowledge bursts forth to destroy the family that the very repression was meant to protect, and the secrecy leaves most bereft the girl it was meant to sustain. In short, it’s a fiction on the subject of the fiction—the lies—on which a family and its mythology are based, and the devastatingly corrosive, corrupting power of those lies to undo the family, the sense of identity, and the values that are built on them.
Richard Brody reviews Park Chan-wook’s “Stoker”: http://nyr.kr/10aToBn
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Hilton Als on the world defined by “funky-smelling claustrophobia and lies” in David Cromer’s play, “Really Really”: http://nyr.kr/YeqZW2
Photograph by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times/Redux.
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"Whenever the movement softened or there was stillness, the drama of the dance increased."
— Andrew Boynton on choreographer Karole Armitage’s return to Dance Theatre Workshop, now expanded to the larger and better-equipped theatre, New York Live Arts: http://nyr.kr/Wb0DCL -
Emily Nussbuam on “House of Cards,” “Scandal,” and her Team Brian attitude to “The Office”: http://nyr.kr/Z39j0t
(Source: newyorker.com)
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"A philosophical travelogue, an allegorical romance, a grandly symphonic visual realization of cultural history—“Interlude” is one of Sirk’s densest and wildest films, which dramatic action and directorial detail converge to sharp points of insight. It’s high on the list of cinematic masterworks in need of revival and rediscovery."
— Richard Brody on Douglas Sirk’s “Interlude,” a hidden masterwork: http://nyr.kr/15afDHy(Source: newyorker.com)
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Fans of the original production, no doubt, will eat the movie up, and good luck to them. I screamed a scream as time went by…
Anthony Lane reviews “Les Miserables”: http://nyr.kr/WwXli1
and “Django Unchained,” and “Amour”: http://nyr.kr/WwXli1
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Books of the Year→
James Wood recommends his books of the year: http://nyr.kr/WkKJXA
An end-of-year bouquet like this one offers a chance to pick some flowers that I didn’t get to this year. So in addition to re-recommending some of the fiction I reviewed in the last twelve months (namely, Hilary Mantel’s “Bring up the Bodies,” Sheila Heti’s “How Should a Person Be?,” Edward St. Aubyn’s “At Last,” and Per Petterson’s “I Curse the River of Time”), I want to mention two books of fiction that I wish I had written about…
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A Silver Linings Encore: Richard Brody, who disliked “Silver Linings Playbook” the first time around, takes a second look: http://nyr.kr/UDrTr6
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Don’t Fear the Vegas Fry
On Wednesday of last week, the New York Times dining critic, Pete Wells, filed the most incendiary review of his tenure, on Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, a five-hundred-seat behemoth in Times Square. The chef behind the restaurant, Guy Fieri, co-owns five other restaurants in California and hosts several shows on the Food Network, including “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” Wells’s review was so colorful in its take-down of Fieri’s restaurant—“why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?” was one of the more popular lines—that it became a viral sensation. But how bad can a highly caloric meal in an air-conditioned environment really be? United in a firmly held conviction that the only place to eat in the vicinity of The New Yorker’s office building in Times Square is the Szechuan place on 39th St., and in their passion for chicken tenders and dessert cocktails, two co-workers went for lunch to investigate. Here are their post-prandial remarks…
Photograph by Theo Wargo/WireImage/Getty.
