A review of three films in the Next program this year: "Sleight," "The First Girl I Loved" and "Operation Avalanche."
Major outlets call the man who assaulted America Ferrera at Cannes and Brad Pitt in Hollywood a "prankster." They're wrong to do so.
The fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy brings out a lot of television, from sober docs to hammy reenactments, with conspiracy theories of all stripes.
For those of us who missed our calling as jet setters, socialites or fashion models along comes the edifying, spritely documentary "Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution" to show us how much work it is to be spontaneously fabulous.
Nearly 40 years ago, in late November of 1973, something rather momentous happened at the Opéra Royal on the grounds of the King's old digs outside Paris. In the course of a fashion show that Women's Wear Daily dubbed "The Battle of Versailles," boldly assertive American runway models -- many of whom were what we now call African-American -- wore sporty, comfortable American designer clothes with such, well, panache that the absolute supremacy of French haute couture was dented for good.
Polls may be open somewhere, results in many races remain inconclusive, but I am willing to make one fearless projection: ABC News is the winner in 2012's Election Night coverage. In fact, ABC's coverage of the entire campaign has generally left competitors red in the face if not green with envy, though that hardly means it was without its own fumbles, stumbles and wretched excesses.
It seems like every film inspired on real-life events becomes controversial for one reason or another. The greater the subject's notoriety, the louder the outcry. The backlash to Oliver Stone's "JFK" was extreme by any standard; it became one of the rare features widely attacked for existing in the first place. This wasn't all that surprising; the movie took one of the most painful events in American history and came up with shocking, damaging conclusions. That Stone tackled the "whats" of the case (the pieces that didn't fit) was already a touchy proposition; that he tried to uncover the "whys" is what took the reaction the next level. Should a film like this have been made?
For me the best news produced by the Florida primary was Newt Gingrich's vow to take his fight all the way to the floor of this year's Republican convention. It has been way too long since a national political convention was more than a coronation stage-managed by public relations experts.
I looked at the old clip again, and tears ran down my face as they did that terrible day in 1963. Walter Cronkite has just been handed a sheet of paper, and reads the news: President Kennedy is dead. What was broken could never be repaired, and the American century continued with assassination, war and calamity.
Film director Robert Altman isn't a stockholder in Twentieth Century-Fox, but if he were, he'd ask this question at Fox's summer board meeting, which will be held here in Chicago Thursday: "When is Robert Altman's new movie 'Health' going to be released?" The studio apparently has no plans to release.
The way it happened that he came to Chicago, Alan Arkin said, was that after he quit singing with the Tarriers he fooled around in New York for awhile, a few acting jobs and a few office jobs that mostly fell through because he couldn't stand working in an office, and then he went out to St. Louis to work with an improvisational group.
Great Movies
