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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-22
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REVIEWS, Page 95Short Takes
TELEVISION
Tonight's Morning After
JAY LENO may or may not be the hardest-working man in show
business, but he's certainly got the hardest job. After Johnny
Carson's lavishly covered farewell to the Tonight show, Leno
faces the impossible task of measuring up to a legend. He did
seem unusually tense his first week. He lacks Carson's easygoing
charisma, and he barrels through interviews as if he can't wait
to get to the end of the question sheet. But his monologues are
sharper than Carson's, and he has given the show a needed coat
of fresh (mostly purple) paint, with hipper musical guests (the
Black Crowes) and fewer Las Vegas geriatrics. One question: How
many of the people lamenting Johnny's departure actually
watched him during the past 10 years?
THEATER
Pockets Full of Rue
What A.R. Gurney is for the old money set, Richard
Greenberg is for yuppie arrivistes: a rueful chronicler of
meaningless manners, misbegotten mores and loves gone wrong. THE
EXTRA MAN, off-Broadway, focuses on a figure common to both
circles: the unattached man of uncertain sexuality and
undeniable charm who is always on hand for friends and in fact
lives through them, sometimes in ways meddlesome or even
Machiavellian. Boyd Gaines, who won a Tony Award as a saintly
gay doctor in The Heidi Chronicles, balances amiability and
creepiness in the role. He is ably backed by TV stars Adam Arkin
(Northern Exposure), Laila Robins (Gabriel's Fire) and John
Slattery (Homefront).
MUSIC
Vibrant Tapestry
The latest batch of Young jazz Turks has produced some
dynamite soloists -- but few great bands. This is due partly to
the high level of competition among the up-and-comers and partly
to their inexperience in the art of collective improvisation.
Trumpeter ROY HARGROVE, in his third Novus album, The Vibe,
manages to offset both factors by teaming up with outstanding
sidemen -- alto-sax player Antonio Hart, pianist Marc Cary,
drummer Gregory Hutchinson and bassist Rodney Whitaker -- who
stitch a vibrant tapestry around his own fat sound. At 22,
Hargrove has the tone, sensitivity and power to emerge as his
generation's man to beat on the golden horn. Fortunately, he
also has the intelligence to share the stage.
BOOKS
A Long and Winding African Road
Last year's winner of Britain's esteemed Booker Prize, THE
FAMISHED ROAD (Doubleday; $22.50), is a long, winding
allegorical novel that draws no line between fact and fantasy.
The Nigerian-born, London-based Ben Okri explores the spiritual
interior of an African nation struggling to reconcile its
traditions with modern dislocations. Sorcerers, ghosts and
two-legged dogs mingle with villagers and politicians in this
hallucinatory narrative that reconnects Nigeria to its origins.
Okri's uncompromising vision and verbal energy carry him swiftly
through 500 pages. The reader too moves along, although a little
less magic and a bit more realism could have given this extended
tour de force more variety and emotional punch.
CINEMA
Chillin' Out
Future film scholars will look back on 1992 and proclaim,
"The glancing charm! The arcane wit! The epitome of cinematic
sophistication . . . Wayne's World!" It surely seems so,
considering the latest competition. In ENCINO MAN, a caveman
(Brendan Fraser) thaws out in a more primitive outpost of
civilization: a San Fernando Valley high school. Because his
guide through California folkways is MTV's rude dude Pauly
Shore, the movie has its share of chillspeak. Michael DeLuise
makes a droll villain -- he's like Woody Harrelson after a brain
switch -- and for maybe 20 minutes the E.T. plot twists are
endurable. After that the pain gets somewhere between mental and
dental. Even Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey seems on the Noel Coward
level compared with this Stoned Age outrage.