American Graffiti American Graffiti
It's true--and a cliché--that Hollywood films hold up a mirror to American society. It's equally true--and equally a cliché--that Hollywood films fail to reflect Am...
Mar 18, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Susie Linfield
On Movies, Money & Politics On Movies, Money & Politics
The Nation asked six politically active members of the entertainment community to comment on recent developments in the realms of politics and popular culture.
Mar 18, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Peter Biskind
Part of Our Time, Too Part of Our Time, Too
Given the late Dalton Trumbo's various claims to verbal fame--highest-paid screenwriter of his day, most vocal member of the Hollywood Ten, polemicist extraordinaire, winner und...
Mar 18, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Dalton Trumbo and Murray Kempton
Too Many Cigarettes Too Many Cigarettes
Monday: Screening of Garry Marshall's The Other Sister, which seems to be about a goldfish.
Mar 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Kazan and the Bad Times Kazan and the Bad Times
Dalton Trumbo, a militant blacklisted screenwriter and novelist, commenting on the fifties struggle against government attempts to throttle the American left, said that in that b...
Mar 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Arthur Miller
Touched by an Angel Touched by an Angel
It's characteristic of Erick Zonca's extraordinary first feature, The Dreamlife of Angels, that we never learn how Isa got that scar across her right eyebrow.
Mar 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Oscar Who? Oscar Who?
Although the producers of the Academy Awards ceremony like to boast that a billion people watch their broadcast, I take comfort in knowing that another 5 billion do not.
Feb 25, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Room With a View Room With a View
A man locks his daughters in a one-room house for their first twelve years. The girls--twins--don't attend school; they don't play with other kids. They're never even given a ba...
Feb 18, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Rear Windows Rear Windows
Said the comic gangster in Payback, misquoting an old saw, "Don't shit where you eat. Or, I mean, where you live. That's it.
Feb 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Two, Like, Star-Crossed Lovers Two, Like, Star-Crossed Lovers
When a young woman in high school frets about the folks in Mogadishu--when, for that matter, she can spell "Mogadishu"--American moviegoers know she needs a fashion makeover, a ...
Feb 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans