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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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REVIEWS, Page 69SHORT TAKES
TELEVISION: And Now, Heeere's . . . Larry?
The line between real life and TV life gets smudged
further in HBO's new comedy series, The Larry Sanders Show.
GARRY SHANDLING, a former Tonight guest host, plays the host of
a Tonight-style talk show. Each episode begins with Larry's
opening monologue, which sounds just like Garry's real
monologues, and brings on real-world guests like Carol Burnett.
The twist is that we get to peek behind the scenes, where all
is phoniness and petty bickering. It's show-biz satire of the
dryest, most in-jokish sort but undeniably funny. Shandling and
a guest try to schmooze as the closing credits roll. "Just
pretend like you're talking to me," he tells her. Fine, Garry,
and we'll pretend TV comedy isn't running into a
self-referential dead end.
CINEMA: A Novel Seduction
The premise is almost high concept. A young writer
(Fabrice Luchini) has just been jilted. A friend proposes that,
as a delicious act of revenge on all women, the fellow should
choose a prospect (Judith Henry), seduce her, then leave her and
write a best seller about his experience. But Christian
Vincent's LA DISCRETE is no frivolous American sex comedy; it
is French, in the best sense of the word. With breathless poise,
the script by Vincent and Jean-Pierre Ronssin juggles cruelty
and gaiety, revealing modern man as a ruthless appraiser
auditioning women for his imaginary harem. Hollywood wouldn't
know what to do with a film so airy, so grave. Poetry is what
gets lost in transatlantic remakes.
BOOKS: Angst and Insights
It is 1882 in Vienna, and the fog is nearly as thick as
Schlag on the strudels. Friedrich Nietzsche and Dr. Joseph
Breuer, an early associate of Freud's, are striking an odd
bargain. The physician will try to cure his patient's migraine
attacks; the philosopher will treat the doctor's deep-rooted
angst. Soon their roles reverse: healer becomes sufferer and,
voila!, the psychoanalytic revolution begins. In WHEN NIETZSCHE
WEPT (Basic Books; $20), psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom imagines
an encounter between two real people who never met. The novel
is strewn with italic sentences to highlight his characters'
head-smacking insights. Still, their relationship carries a
certain poignancy as they discover their common roots: delusion
and loneliness.
MUSIC: Playing It Straight With Carmen
CARMEN is quintessential opera that virtually performs
itself. So irresistible are its melodies, so forceful is the
drama, so primal the emotions, that it's hard for even an inept
production to miss. Over the years, Bizet's masterpiece has been
adapted, updated, mutilated, so it is refreshing that the New
York City Opera has a new version (performances till November)
that plays it straight. It helps to have a Carmen who dominates
the stage, and Sharon Graham, a young American, scores high.
With a fluid, supple mezzo, she revels in the gypsy girl's fatal
craving for freedom and her dance toward death, but she avoids
phony flourish. More will be heard from Graham, starting with
a PBS broadcast of Cavalleria Rusticana on Sept. 30.
MUSIC: Doesn't He Shine?
"I ain't California pretty,/ I can't survive the Great
White Way," sings WAYLON JENNINGS in Too Dumb for New York City,
Too Ugly for L.A., the title cut from his potent new album of
barroom sermons. Yet the Last Outlaw of country music will get
along somehow. His voice, after four decades of late nights and
one-nights, has the moral authority of a man who's found mellow
wisdom on hard roads. He tells us, in The Hank Williams Syndrome
Is Dead, that it's better to trust an artist's songs than to
imitate his misspent life. In Didn't We Shine? he administers
balm to all lost loves: "But I've long ago forgiven you/ For
what you did or didn't do." With these witty, poignant songs,
Jennings proves that the country heart is equidistant from the
brain and the gut. Keep on Waylon, old man.