Try To Tell the Story
By David Thomson
Alfred A. Knopf, 224 pages, $23.95
There are two kinds of personalities prone to getting lost in the movies:
1. Those for whom movies are an escape from life.
2. Those for whom movies are a lens through which to examine life—from Read More
There’s an avid, glittery quality to Nicole Kidman’s eyes. Kubrick understood that she’s particularly suited to suggesting lewdness—“Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing”—but she’s also obviously intelligent, and when she dulls over those startling eyes, she can even indicate existential pain. It’s a toss-up as to which resonates most strongly with David Thomson.
“I don’t Read More
There’s an avid, glittery quality to Nicole Kidman’s eyes. Kubrick understood that she’s particularly suited to suggesting lewdness—“Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing”—but she’s also obviously intelligent, and when she dulls over those startling eyes, she can even indicate existential pain. It’s a toss-up as to which resonates most strongly with David Thomson.
“I don’t Read More
Thanks to the auteur theory, instead of a lot of antiquated factory product and the studio P. and L. of yesteryear, we have the greats-Ford, Hawks, Lubitsch, Sturges, Cukor, Wyler, Lang, Wilder, Fuller, Hitchcock (and this is just a quick Monday-morning skim off the top of one’s head). And then we have near-greats, like Michael Read More
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Alfred A. Knopf, 288 pages, $24.
In prose as bland as institutional pudding, Kazuo Ishiguro has compiled an unsettling horror story. It’s so constructed, or rigged, that it’s only in the last 20 or so pages (with a rather awkward explanation scene such as Hercule Poirot once relied Read More
The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, by David Thomson. Alfred A. Knopf, 400 pages, $27.95.
It’s generally agreed that David Thomson has the most deliciously riveting style of any critic alive-witty, allusive, with a slithery vivacity and a whip-crack rhythm. But style alone can’t make a great critic; if it could, Anthony (“Movies Are Read More
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film , by David Thomson. Alfred A. Knopf, 963 pages, $35.
It looks unassuming enough, just like any other reference book: weighty, blockish and solid as a brick. The author, too, sounds foursquare: a couple of film biographies under his belt, now occasionally writes for The New York Times ; Read More
Jacques Rivette’s Va Savoir (Who Knows?) , from a screenplay by Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent and Mr. Rivette, opened the 39th New York Film Festival 2001 on Sept. 28. David Thomson, in his perceptively appreciative evaluation of Mr. Rivette’s long career in The New York Times , criticized the festival’s choice simply because Va Savoir Read More
24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas , by Andrés Martinez. Villard Books, 352 pages, $25.
The Real Las Vegas: Life Beyond the Strip , edited by David Littlejohn. Oxford University Press, 306 pages, $30.
In Nevada: The Land, the People, God, and Chance , by David Thomson. Alfred Read More
Slifkas’ Legal Circus
In Manhattan and East Hampton, the names of Alan and Virginia Slifka are time-honored social touchstones of wealth and philanthropy. Mr. Slifka made his millions as an arbitrageur and investment adviser, most recently via his Halcyon-Alan B. Slifka Management Company. (He is also a major investor, along with George Soros, in Read More
