Even discounting its unfinished narrative, Fitzgerald's final fragment of a novel suffers from the usual deficiencies of his non-Gatsby oeuvre—or perhaps, more aptly, the inability of his non-Gatsby work to sustain the author's moonlight-cold voice. To wit: the chronology of events is problematic; the writing is frequently fussy and mannered; and the characters are as staged and distant as mannequins. There's passing beauty and occasional incisiveness here, particularly in scenes involving the inner workings of the film biz, but the story as a whole, or subset thereof, never gels.
Artist: Carla Werner. Album: Departure.
Artist: Brandtson. Album: Hello, Control.
Ann Patchett's musical saga of Latin American guerillas and their political hostages manages to be magic realist without veering into surrealist camp. If you're willing to suspend disbelief and accept that a world-famous soprano can sooth a bunch of ornery insurgents—and that genuine love can blossom despite obvious Stockholm Syndrome overtones—the graceful prose and (perhaps overly) picturesque imagery will go down real nice-like.
This uneven collection of A.M. Homes' short stories begins bangingly with the deadpan tale of a stagnant married couple who rekindle their spark by lighting up a crack pipe. A subsequent vignette about an abducted boy who induces a sort of buyer's remorse in his kidnapper is somewhat less effective but nevertheless intriguing. The rest of the stories are frequently too similar in their quietly desperate neurasthenia, eventually blurring together in a single high-pitched whine that's all posturing portraiture and not enough plot.
If Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was essentially a seamless movie, story and artistic vision cut from whole cloth, The Science of Sleep is a major step back for Michel Gondry—not an outright debacle along the lines of the director's earlier Human Nature, but nowhere near the accomplishment of his last film. Working from his own screenplay, which is perhaps the entire problem, Gondry presents a love story without any actual love or story—merely characters behaving absurdly against a dissonant, intermittently striking collage of his music video tropes—time slicing, stop-motion animation, oversized hands. It's a vision of cotton-cloud sunsets and yarn unicorns that never snaps into focus, despite the sincere and likable efforts of Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the would-be romantic leads. There's just enough to admire here to really regret the absence of a better film. Grade: C+
Almost mind-alteringly not-shitty for a Showtime serial. In fact it's so not-shitty that HBO should probably trade Big Love for it just to restore the cosmic premium cable balance. (PS. Also surprisingly not-shitty for anything—live action—featuring Hank Azaria.)
Nicole Holofcener's graciously unforced ensemble piece about bourgeois Los Angelinos is loose, funny and surprisingly satisfying for a movie that doesn't really adhere to a conventional cinematic structure. And Jennifer Aniston is fortunately more money than Friends in an uncharacteristically palatable turn as a depressed recent dumpee (heh). The rest of the cast is as good and relatable as expected. Grade: B+
Hard-candy noir isn't half as smart and twisty as its numerous and unnecessary voiceovers would suggest, but there's some sweet scenery chewing by Morgan Freeman and an ingratiatingly vivacious turn by Lucy Liu to spice up an otherwise cold dish. (Why is Josh Hartnett starting to remind me of Ashton Kutcher?) Grade: B-
Artist: The Presets. Album: Girl and the Sea - EP
14 years and a $14 million payday after Sharon Stone moneyshot to stardom in the original Basic Instinct, the actress returns to obliterate her signature character in this comatose sequel. Sure, there's some mild camp to savor—namely Stone barking bitter double entendres in a series of increasingly Muppety drag-ball ensembles, her boobs badly 'jobbed, her trademark smirk reduced to a lopsided Botoxed sneer—but mostly this is a dull, surprisingly sexless movie about a lousy shrink (a doughy David Morrissey) with a great office and a curiously unmotivated fixation on Stone, the latter reduced to a supporting role in her own vehicle. Michael Caton-Jones' dour direction doesn't help, comparing unfavorably with Paul Verhoeven's lurid, seamless stewardship of the first film. If Basic Instinct 2 presents us with anything remotely redolent of graceful aging, it's in the person of Charlotte Rampling, who, despite an even more thankless role, could teach Stone a thing or two about sex and death. Grade: Z