When the great German bass Kurt Moll came out for his curtain call after the second act of Die Meistersinger at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich a few evenings ago, the audience gave him a hero’s ovation. Mr. Moll had appeared only fleetingly as the tipsy Night Watchman in old Nürnberg, but this was Read More
Alexander Cockburn, in the latest Nation, tells the story of the first time he wrote about Israeli violence against the Palestinians—yes, in retaliation for (lesser) Palestinian violence—and it was removed from the Village Voice, in 1973, in an “unwonted act of censorship” by the Voice’s founder and then-editor Dan Wolf. Cockburn’s moving piece underscores Read More
Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, from a screenplay by Fred Breinersdorfer, happens to be one of five Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film. I’ve seen only one of the other contenders: the very controversial Israeli film Paradise Now, centered on two would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. There is reportedly agitation afoot at the Read More
Animal lovers to the alert! Forget about the penguins: A whole new gang of four-legged love makers have arrived to establish squatters’ rights on your hearts. Eight Below, a surprise hit inspired by a true story with the kind of charm, action, adventure and humanity for which I was totally unprepared, is about eight of Read More
Admitting the Truth
To the Editor:
Re “Sharpton Dances and Madison Ave. Raids Campaigns” [Ben Smith, Jan. 9]: Here in California, the national capital of staggeringly big big-money campaigns, the debate between traditional advertising agencies and their political-advertising counterparts has been raging for years. And, to be fair, there’s some truth on both sides. Madison Read More
Steven Spielberg’s Munich, from a screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas, resembles other recent “significant” films: It’s overlong, psychologically unfocused, thematically devious and curiously anachronistic in its crypto-pacifism. Even before its official release, it had set off firestorms of controversy between so-called Zionists and anti-Zionists, Israelis Read More
It’s a wrap: 2005 is over, and here’s what’s left of both the movies that will get you through the holidays and the space I’ve got to tell you about them. The Matador is a nice year-end surprise worth checking out. I don’t know why 52-year-old Pierce Brosnan, after four hit outings as James Bond, Read More
Steven Spielberg’s Munich, from a screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas, resembles other recent “significant” films: It’s overlong, psychologically unfocused, thematically devious and curiously anachronistic in its crypto-pacifism. Even before its official release, it had set off firestorms of controversy between so-called Zionists and anti-Zionists, Israelis Read More
American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous Painting, by Steven Biel. W.W. Norton, 215 pages, $21.95.
American Gothic: The Biography of Grant Wood’s American Masterpiece, by Thomas Hoving. Chamberlain Bros., 165 pages, $13.95.
Grant Wood’s American Gothic, a picture fascinating even in its bleakness, has become the best-known work of art created in Read More
It’s Memorial Day, and he lays out his uniform on the bed. World War II: Ninth Division, 47th Infantry Regiment, Second Battalion, F Company. He curses as he struggles to pin on the ribbons-the old spike-and-screw hardware is stiff and unworkable. And he has mislaid the little wire that holds his uniform shirt collar down Read More
