Grace

Aw, man. Those poor Glee kids. I can just see their sad and disappointed faces now. 19 nominations and only three wins (Jane Lynch—natch, Ryan Murphy’s Best Direction and Neil Patrick Harris in a richly deserved Guest Actor). But honestly, as big a fan as I am, I can’t honestly say, for instance, that...
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As writing students learn in Fiction 101, Rule #1 (well, maybe it’s rule #2 or #16) of crafting a good story is never to build a story around the revelation of a BIG SECRET at the very end. Why? Because, inevitably, that secret will disappoint. What’s more, a good story gives readers something to...
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The 88-year-old Alain Resnais’s latest film, WILD GRASS, shows him remaining true, all these decades later, to the principles of the French “Nouvelle Vague” of which he was a leading proponent:  anarchy, whimsy, visual antics, nonlinear and nonsensical story lines, abrupt endings, randomness and deliberate artifice. Although many of these devices, so revolutionary in...
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Looks like everyone’s getting a turn. If last week’s episode was all Don and Joan, this episode has Peggy and Pete come into their own. Pete kicks butt and Peggy gets hip. Also, a lot of reminders of pre-feminism days. For those of you who think we’re post-feminist, we’ve come a very long way,...
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One of the few documentaries ever to show at Cannes, granted a private screening for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the agitprop activist documentary “Countdown to Zero” delivers a blast from a collective past when the threat of nuclear annihilation loomed like a gigantic mushroom cloud over the horizon. Nowadays that threat feels...
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How many markers of the 1960s can be squeezed into one Mad Men episode? I count “the pill,” abortion, Vietnam, “grass,” Berkeley student protests and the youth revolution, hitchhiking—and that’s all before the first commercial break. Let’s start from the beginning. Joannie is at the gynecologist, feet in stirrups, finding out if she all’s...
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The fourth offering from the comedy team of Will Farrell (star) and Adam McKay (director, writer), “The Other Guys” doesn’t reach the zany heights of their earlier hits “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” but still gives Farrell plenty of opportunities for the inspired silliness and...
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The episode title is: Christmas comes but once a year. And thank the little Baby Jesus for that. Because Christmas in Mad Menland is grim indeed. If possible, Don Draper is drinking even more than ever. I pity you fools who play the Mad Men drinking game. I’m sure you’re all passed out by...
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In the previous millennium, when I was an idealistic young thing attending Barnard College, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, there was a lot of talk about who before us had walked the hallowed halls: anthropologist Margaret Mead, writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, Zora Neale Thurston, Francine du Plessix Gray, Patricia Highsmith and...
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“The Kids Are All Right” opens with shots of 18-year-old Joni (a wonderful Mia Wasikowska) playing Scrabble with friends and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) sniffing a crushed Sudafed with his skateboarding buddy Clay, all to Vampire Weekend’s “Cousins.” Joni and Laser are gorgeous, smart and nice. Despite the minor drug use and usual teenager...
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