Movies

He Got Game (Buena Vista Pictures). Critics rank Spike Lee's Oedipal basketball drama--starring Denzel Washington as a convict and the NBA's Ray Allen as his estranged son--at the top of his oeuvre. After paying Lee's recent films scant attention, they declare him "underrated" and "overlooked" (Janet Maslin, the New York Times). They're pleased to find that Allen can act, that Washington has a mean streak, and that Lee critiques capitalism more than he does racism. Dissenters gripe about cheap high-mindedness, especially the caricatures of money-grubbing sports agents. (Click here for David Edelstein's review in Slate and here for the official site.)

Les Misérables (Columbia Pictures). The 18^th film version of Victor Hugo's novel, this one from Danish director Bille August, wins modest praise despite its familiar story and conventional telling. Strong performances are credited: Geoffrey Rush uses the prosecutor Javert as a portrait of zealotry, and Liam Neeson makes the prisoner Valjean, a character without a "recognizable human flaw," seem complex (Jay Carr, the Boston Globe). Others praise the film's slow European pace as an antidote to Hollywood's manic style. Detractors complain it's just plain boring. (Here is the official site. And a recent "Summary Judgment" has an item on Hugo chic.)

Summer Movie Roundup. Few summer movies are even trying to duplicate Titanic's success, the Hollywood press reports. "The studios sensibly scaled down" in the wake of the Christmastime smash hit, says Time's Richard Corliss. Variety's Dan Cox forecasts fewer action flicks and "more offbeat weepies than usual." Highly touted are Steven Spielberg's World War II drama Saving Private Ryan (starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon) and Peter Weir's satiric The Truman Show, about a man (Jim Carrey) whose entire life is televised. The exception is a remake of Godzilla from the creators of Independence Day; critics predict it will be the summer box-office champ.

Television

Newsmagazine Roundup. Rumors that ABC and NBC may replace their nightly news shows with prime-time newsmagazines trigger laments about the genre's decline. NBC's tabloidy Dateline, already on four times a week, is called "as close to local TV news as anything the networks have yet come up with" (Richard Zoglin, Time). Meanwhile, a highly praised PBS documentary about 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt prompts critics to note that show's downfall as well. Citing Andy Rooney's dithering commentaries and a story bashing gay studies, Entertainment Weekly declares the once high-minded CBS show "alarmingly behind the times."

Books

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, by Peter Biskind (Simon & Schuster). As 1970s American cinema enjoys a critical renaissance, reviewers lap up the gossip in a book about its groundbreaking directors. Reviewers share the author's view that these auteurs--including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, and Paul Schrader--reinvented American cinema with their gritty dramas but arrogantly overindulged in drugs and sex. Some critics rant about present-day Hollywood: "[F]ew of the films of the earlier era would get the green light today," says USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna. (Excerpts are available here.)

The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (Verso). The left-wing publishing house Verso has reissued the classic of political philosophy on its 150^th anniversary, marketing the book at chic clothiers as "an accessory, a stocking-stuffer, a badge of consummate capitalist cool" (Barbara Ehrenreich, Salon). Left-wing reviewers stress the tract's continued relevance as a critique of labor relations, while conservatives redefine Marx and Engels as prophets of capitalism who respected the economy's dynamism and strength. Scholarly reviewers honor it as "an enduring masterpiece that immediately catches up readers in its transpersonal force and sweep" (Steven Marcus, the New York Times Book Review).

Theater