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summary judgmentSummary JudgmentHighlights from the week in criticism.2NA=1154&NC=1208&DI=4098&PS=58335&PI=7315SummaryJudgmentfalsefalseCulturespacernotembeddedsummary judgmentYuppie-sploitationBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on The Brave One and In the Valley of Elah.noYuppie-sploitationThe critical buzz on The Brave One and In the Valley of Elah.nospacer205150The Brave OneZoe Kravitz, Jodie Foster, and Victor Colicchio in The Brave Onefalsefalse1/123125/123064/2156591/2173285/070914_SJ_braveOne.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123064/2156591/2173285/070914_SJ_braveOne.jpg205150http://img.slate.com/mediafalse20094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM63374706318338727120094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM63374706318338727120094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM633747063183387271false200791441106PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:11:06 PM633253830660000000200791441106PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:11:06 PM633253830660000000The Brave One (Warner Bros.). Jodie Foster's top-flight performance as a softie, liberal public radio host turned stone-cold vigilante killer lends a touch of class to this "upscale revenge drama" (the Onion A.V. Club). The Los Angeles Times isn't alone in seeing a contradiction in terms: a movie "trapped in a no man's land between seriousness and pulp trash." But most critics think it works—reprehensible or no. Despite himself, the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter gives in: "You may hate yourself for yielding to the expertise of the manipulation, but the vicarious thrill of 'The Brave One' is the sense of pulling your own trigger on pure evil and watching the bullet tear through." And at least Scott Foundas, in the Village Voice, thinks that mechanism—turning liberals against their better instincts—makes this an important movie: "more worth writing, talking, and thinking about than anything that has tumbled off the Hollywood assembly line in a good long while." (Buy tickets to The Brave One. Read Eric Lichtenfeld's Slate piece on vigilante movies.)—Sept. 14truenotochyperlinkno2007910121109PMMondaySepSeptember129/10/2007 4:11:09 PM633250230690000000200791443941PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:39:41 PM633253847810000000summary judgmentThe Western Lives OnBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot 'Em Up.noThe Western Lives OnThe critical buzz on 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot 'Em Up.no3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate). Critics like this Western, in part because it feels familiar—it remakes the 1957 classic of the same name and is steeped in the conventions of the genre, though it's more expressive and violent than the original. In The New Yorker, David Denby writes, "I found myself settling into its stern logic and its physical splendor with a grateful sigh." At the same time, the new film is too elaborate for some: The Village Voice's J. Hoberman sighs, "What's lost in [director James] Mangold's rough-hewn exercise in barroom-brawl baroque is the original one-on-one." As the New York Times explains in a review of a new special-edition DVD, the original film was "a psychological drama, as intense as a Bergman marital duel, but played out in a forceful exchange of looks and gestures." In any case, reviewers think performances are fine—especially Russell Crowe as the brilliant psychopath at the center of the movie and Peter Fonda as a grizzled bounty hunter. (Buy tickets to 3:10 to Yuma. Buy the original 1957 version on DVD.)—Sept. 7truenotochyperlinkno20079434457PMTuesdaySepSeptember159/4/2007 7:44:57 PM63324517497000000020079710139PMFridaySepSeptember139/7/2007 5:01:39 PM633247668990000000summary judgmentThe Latino JobBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on Ladrón que roba a ladrón and The Nines.noThe Latino JobThe critical buzz on Ladrón que roba a ladrón and The Nines.noLadrón que roba a ladrón (Lionsgate). A bunch of Latino immigrants, trusting in their invisibility in a casually bigoted Los Angeles, set out to pull off an outrageous heist. This describes the plot of Ladrón que roba a ladrón ("A thief who steals from a thief"), but also the production: As critics note, "the film bears a suspicious, almost lawsuit-worthy resemblance to the Ocean's movies" (Nathan Rabin, the Onion's A.V. Club). So much the better, most reviewers think. USA Today's Claudia Puig fully endorses the caper, writing: "It's not a watered-down imitation or a south-of-the-border remake. It is clever, funny and very entertaining." The movie's political message is played lightly, but the Austin Chronicle hears it loud and clear: "Ladrón is grand Hollywood entertainment for and about a long-ignored culture that's just now starting to sense the potential vastness of its own economic and political influence. To make an intelligent heist film is difficult work; to shoot an entertaining sociological study is near impossible. To manage both at the same time has got to be some kind of minor miracle." (Buy tickets to Ladrón que roba a ladrón.)—Aug. 31truenotochyperlinkno200782711231PMMondayAugAugust138/27/2007 5:12:31 PM633238171510000000200783151649PMFridayAugAugust178/31/2007 9:16:49 PM633241774090000000summary judgmentNanny BoresBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on The Nanny Diaries and The King of Kong.noNanny BoresThe critical buzz on The Nanny Diaries and The King of Kong.nospacer205150The Nanny DiariesNicholas Art and Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diariesfalsefalse1/123125/123064/2156591/2171735/070824_SJ_Nanny.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123064/2156591/2171735/070824_SJ_Nanny.jpg205150http://img.slate.com/mediafalse20094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM63374706317932474720094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM63374706317932474720094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM633747063179324747false200782433444PMFridayAugAugust158/24/2007 7:34:44 PM633235664840000000200782433444PMFridayAugAugust158/24/2007 7:34:44 PM633235664840000000The Nanny Diaries (MGM). Everyone compares this film to last year's The Devil Wears Prada (both films are based on dishy novels that send up Manhattan's elite). Unfortunately for The Nanny Diaries, it's very much the loser. New York magazine's David Edelstein calls it "a grim slog"—and few critics would disagree. The highlight is unequivocally Laura Linney, who "delivers a masterpiece of Cruella De Vil-level toxin" (per the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter) as the evil mom/boss Mrs. X. (Although she still doesn't live up to Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly.) The mopey Scarlett Johansson and her shiftless protagonist don't fare as well. The New York Times' Stephen Holden smirks that she "may smolder invitingly in certain roles, but The Nanny Diaries is the latest in a string of films that suggest that this somnolent actress confuses sullen attitudinizing with acting." (Buy tickets to The Nanny Diaries. Read Dana Stevens' review of The Nanny Diaries in Slate.)—Aug. 24truenotochyperlinkno200782010635PMMondayAugAugust138/20/2007 5:06:35 PM6332321199500000002007824125850PMFridayAugAugust128/24/2007 4:58:50 PM633235571300000000summary judgmentSupergoodBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on Superbad.noSupergoodThe critical buzz on Superbad.noSuperbad (Sony). Last month, the New Yorker's David Denby lamented the state of romantic comedy, as epitomized by Judd Apatow's phallocentric Knocked Up. But this teen sex comedy, co-written by that film's star, Seth Rogen, and co-produced by Apatow, has him rethinking his position: "I recently wrote that I could happily do without any more movies devoted to the breaking of the male bond. Yet here's an uproarious and touching picture on that theme." Superbad follows two high-school nerds in their mock-epic quest to score booze and get laid. It's incredibly (incredibly!) obscene and, critics think, extremely hilarious. David Edelstein of New York magazine notes "a nonstop stream of F- and P- and D-words that would make David Mamet sit up and salute." But as the New York Times' Manohla Dargis writes, the film is attuned to "[t]he divide between what a man says … and how he really feels inside … no matter how unapologetically vulgar their words, no matter how single-mindedly priapic their preoccupations, these men and boys are good and decent and tender and true." In a phrase: Classic Apatow. (Read Dana Stevens' review of Superbad in Slate. Buy tickets to Superbad.)—Aug. 17truenotochyperlinkno200781360150PMMondayAugAugust188/13/2007 10:01:50 PM6332262491000000002007817122107PMFridayAugAugust128/17/2007 4:21:07 PM633229500670000000200311442523PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:23 PM631781583230000000200311442523PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:23 PM631781583230000000falsetruefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001102623213PMFridayOctOctober1410/26/2001 6:32:13 PM631397035330000000Reviewers reviewed.By xDavid KurnickxKurnick, DavidDavidKurnickfalse13151617-496-2845617-496-28771430 Massachusetts Ave, 4th FlCambridgeMA02138USA110523420011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101874407PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:44:07 PM63139031047000000011Summary Judgment2009624122431PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:31 PM63381443071991519745320011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101874407PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:44:07 PM631390310470000000 Movie Jerry Maguire (TriStar). Critics are surprised by how much they like the latest Tom Cruise vehicle, the sentimental education of a coldhearted, supersuccessful sports agent. The New York Observer's Andrew Sarris went to Jerry Maguire expecting to indulge in "Tom Cruise-bashing" but left charmed by its "feel-good holiday entertainment with emotional zest." "Cruise's charm hasn't been this potent in years," enthuses Newsweek's David Ansen. (People's Tom Gliatto disagrees, accusing Cruise of making his eyes "intensely shiny, like a lemur's," when he wants to convey emotion.) SLATE's Sarah Kerr and New York's David Denby concur that Cruise's performance as a corporate shark amounts to a successful satire of his usual role as triumphant stud: "He shows us that there's a terrifying abyss under the confidence--no ideas, no particular personality, no nothing," says Denby. They both give director Cameron Crowe (Singles, Say Anything ...) the credit. "Cameron Crowe has broken into big-time commercial filmmaking without losing his soul," says Denby. (Sony's site for the film includes trailer clips and a chance to win a trip abroad.) leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307200714532009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307200714532009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720071453P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 leftyesspacerSlate247/Stamaty_airframeSJ.GIFhttp://img.slate.com/mediafalseIllustration by Mark Alan Stamaty2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307202277092009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307202277092009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720227709Pfalse20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101911715AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:17:15 AM631390510350000000 Book Airframe, by Michael Crichton (Knopf). Touchstone Pictures has already laid out $8 million to film Crichton's latest novel, and most reviewers can see past the novel to the movie to come. "The pacing is fast, the suspense nonstop," Cynthia Sanz writes in People. "Airframe seems born for celluloid." In Newsday, Jean Hanff Korelitz says that the thriller reads "annoyingly like a fleshed-out screenplay, with characters allotted--if they're lucky--a single descriptive line." Airframe--which traces the investigation of a fatal airplane malfunction--is mainly attacked for the main character's cardboard personality and her irritating tendency to lecture on the minutiae of airplane construction. But The New Yorker's John Lanchester calls Airframe "one of Crichton's satisfying thrillers, his best since Jurassic Park," with underrated social value: "After all, not many books deliberately aimed at the top of the best-seller list will contain a bald plea for increased federal regulation." (The Random House site for Airframe includes a chapter of the book, a forum on whether flying's safe, and more.) leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307202277092009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307202277092009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720227709P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 Movie and Books Evita (Hollywood Pictures); Santa Evita, by Tomas Eloy Martinez (Knopf); Eva Perón, by Alicia Dujovne Ortíz (St. Martin's); In My Own Words (New Press). The Evita juggernaut gathers momentum. Newsweek and Time review the film three weeks before it opens Christmas Day. Newsweek's David Ansen calls the movie "gorgeous" and "epic," though politically muddled: "Instead of insight you get spectacle." The magazine tells the story of how Madonna beat out Meryl Streep and Patti LuPone for the role--British filmmaker Alan Parker assures readers that when the movie opens, "no one will think anyone else could have done it"--and Time movie critic Richard Corliss revels in all the fuss: "Madonna is a magnet for all eyes. You must watch her. And to find the soul of the modern musical for once on the big screen, you must see Evita." Newsweek and The New Yorker take on Tomas Eloy Martinez's historical novel, Santa Evita; Alicia Dujovne Ortíz's Perón bio, Eva Perón; and Perón's own dedicated-from-her-deathbed meditation, In My Own Words. The New Yorker's Alma Guillermoprieto calls Santa Evita "brilliant"; Newsweek's Brook Larmer calls Eva Perón "gossipy" and In My Own Words "apocryphal." Also, fashion critics disagree as to whether Madonna's Dior-like costumes, with the help of a "Christian Dior" show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will bring back the French designer's 1950s "New Look." The New York Times' Amy M. Spindler says no: "Honey, nobody wants to look matronly," Spindler quotes designer Bill Blass as saying. SLATE's Anne Hollander says yes, probably , while cautioning that modern women may not be ready "to celebrate feminine charm with luxury and high artifice." The Evita film site has clips, stills, etc. (Item to be updated regularly.) leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307203839652009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307203839652009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720383965P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 leftyesspacerSlate247/Stamaty_BastardSJ.GIFhttp://img.slate.com/mediafalseIllustration by Mark Alan Stamaty2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307203839652009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307203839652009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720383965Pfalse20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101911715AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:17:15 AM631390510350000000 Television Bastard Out of Carolina (Showtime). When Ted Turner's TNT network dropped Anjelica Huston's adaptation of Dorothy Allison's 1992 novel--Turner reportedly couldn't stomach the graphic scenes of child rape--Showtime picked it up. It's finally airing this Sunday, and most critics wish it weren't: They say Bastard, which stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as a poor Southern woman whose husband molests her daughter, is simply too degrading to watch. Even reviewers who focus on the heroines' resilience don't like the violence. Lisa Schwarzbaum's generally positive review for Entertainment Weekly says that "when Huston grabs us by the eyeballs and forces us to watch such sickening violence, we become voyeurs--and feel ashamed." New York's John Leonard laments that, in translation from text to television, Allison's taut prose has been sacrificed and one character, de-lesbianized: "Savage and disquieting art has been turned into merely competent television." (Showtime's site has downloadable photos from the film.) leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307205402212009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307205402212009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720540221P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 Book The Battle for Christmas, by Stephen Nissenbaum (Knopf). Nissenbaum's history of Christmas has elicited sparse but wildly various reactions: "Fascinating," says Kenneth L. Woodward in Newsweek; "100-proof hogwash," says Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post. Nissenbaum, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, argues that Christmas was never really a pristine occasion for good will and Christian selflessness; it was a rowdy, carnivalesque bacchanalia of drinking, rioting, and fornicating in the streets. The New York Times Book Review's Frances Stead Sellers finds the argument "rather unsurprising," but concedes that "this is entertaining material, and Mr. Nissenbaum makes the most of it." leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307205402212009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307205402212009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720540221P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 Opera Benjamin Britten in New York. By the end of this season, four operas by Benjamin Britten will have been performed in the city, and The New Yorker's Alex Ross deems this a canonization of sorts for Britten, who died in 1976: "This composer is making the transition to classic status." Ross and New York's Peter Davis agree that the challenge of Britten's work is its weirdness--the cruelty and murky psychologizing of the operas, the difficult orchestral music. They are both generally pleased with the biggest production, the Metropolitan Opera's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although Davis criticizes the "sluggish, unresponsive, and distinctly unmagical" Met orchestra, and Ross quibbles with the set's queasy-making colors, "including a particular shade of green, which, for lack of a match on the color wheel, I am going to call NyQuil Milkshake." In the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini approves of the emphasis Dream director Tim Albery has put on the homoerotic relationship between Oberon and Puck; Albery does justice, he writes, to the "theme of sexual dominance" which runs through Britten's work. --Compiled by David Kurnick. Illustrations by Mark Alan Stamaty leftyesspacer27/ClearDot.gif1111http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307206964772009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM6338144307206964772009624122432PMWednesdayJunJune126/24/2009 4:24:32 PM633814430720696477P false20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101912906AMFridayOctOctober110/19/2001 5:29:06 AM631390517460000000 10ReviewersReviewersR0 0000false2310falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalse2471996121233000AMThursdayDecDecember312/12/1996 8:30:00 AM6298595820000000001996121233000AMThursdayDecDecember312/12/1996 8:30:00 AM629859582000000000