A missive has just arrived from Sara Vilkomerson, our envoy to the Toronto Film Festival.
1. Air Canada section of La Guardia was overrun by douchebags talking about “projects.”
2. The Suri Cruise Vanity Fair was sold out at all the newstands. (See above.)
3. I talked to a charming girl named Tracy, age 24. Read More
While I was trying to decide how I would introduce my customary list of the past year’s achievements and non-achievements, I consulted what I wrote last year—and I was struck by how applicable it was to this year. So simply by changing a few numerals, I can repeat last year’s introduction, secure in the knowledge Read More
The Transom has seen a whole hell of a lot of movies this year and is a know-it-all and a total busy-body and sometimes pretends to be psychic at parties. So, why not jump in the Oscar pool?
Best Actress
Felicity Huffman beats out Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon and Naomi, improbably, Watts. Maybe, Read More
Reese Witherspoon is as modishly contemporary as a Palm Pilot with a Duracell battery. Watching her play scheming, flirtatious 19th-century golddigger Becky Sharp in the latest of a long line of movie adaptations (four that I know about) of William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic novel Vanity Fair is so disconcerting that I kept staring at the Read More
Hand on the hip of her Alberta Ferretti gown, her proud chin jutting out from that pixie face, Reese Witherspoon stares out from the cover of the September issue of Vanity Fair, the cursive headline announcing the actress as “Regally Blonde.” The caption continues, “Reese Witherspoon brings home a $15 million paycheck, makes time for Read More
Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl , from a screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, is purportedly based on a culturally dubious source, namely the Disneyworld theme-park ride Pirates of the Caribbean. The operative words to describe the proceedings are “stylishly exuberant” if you like the movie, and Read More
Wednesday 25th
Summer naked, some ain’t …. When the temps rise, our “enlightened” editor-currently in the South of France sampling stinky cheeses and gamine flesh -demands that we “up the sexy quotient” in the calendar, so here’s our best effort: the “Take Home a Nude” auction of paintings and sculpture benefiting the New York Read More
Andy Tennant’s Sweet Home Alabama , from a screenplay by C. Jay Cox, based on a story by Douglas J. Eboch, would be an unendurable viewing experience for this ultra-provincial New Yorker if 26-year-old Reese Witherspoon were not on hand to inject her pure fantasy character, Melanie Carmichael, with a massive infusion of old-fashioned Hollywood Read More
Peter Næss’ Elling , from a screenplay by Axel Hellstenius and Mr. Næss, based on the novel by Ingvar Ambjørnsen, was the Norwegian nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2001 Academy Awards. It emerges finally in regular release as a singularly affecting and amusing fable of two misfits who awkwardly find fulfillment within Read More
Robert Luketic’s Legally
Blonde , from a screenplay by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, based
on the book by Amanda Brown, lacks the satiric bite of Alexander Payne’s Election (1999) and the neo-classical
grace of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless
(1995), but it also lacks the grossness and calculated idiocy of so many
current school-age farces-which Read More
