arts

The Bourne Supremacy is a fine summer spy flick which shows off why we love exciting man-on-the-run mysteries and also why they are forgettable. The contradiction between escapist air-conditioned entertainment and smartly executed thriller is happily ignored in this tightly edited film. While there are no substantial characters to speak

The Terminal's tag-line is "Life is Waiting". Actually, we're still waiting, not so much for life -- which arrives in many surprising ways in the airport terminal that is the setting for the movie -- but for a reason why the movie was made. Maestro Steven Spielberg and American Everyman

I missed the first episode, and I'm getting on in years, so this may just not be my kind of move. While a pleasant enough diversion, and certainly fun for small children, I don't get it. Shreck 2 has all comedy stylings of an average sit-com (that's not a good

My first "Ring" opera: Die Walküre. Wonderful, traditional production conducted by James Levine with Placido Domingo as Siegmund and James Merrill as Wotan. Domingo was fine, yet Merrill has the far bigger role as the God who is trapped by his own machinations to retrieve the Ring. But typical Wagner:

Saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a few weeks ago. Quite good and thoughtful. As zany as the plotting is, you really don't have to worry about it. Though you spend lots of energy trying to figure out if a scene is present time, past memory, or some combination

A great musical, oddly (like Lear) restrained.  Alfred Molina stars as the long-suffering Tevye; Molina has been in starring and secondary roles in movies for the past twenty years, including a bad sit-com; it's great to see him in such a big role. So why does he play it so

can't talk now....pretty good, restrained production. Christopher Plummer's Lear was fine, but the whole thing seemed ill-fitting. Jonathon Miller's direction left a bit to be desired -- he doesn't care for the whole "primal" angle to Lear; the costumes were Elizabethan! Not my cup of tea.

Tosca, New York Metropolitan Opera Another (twenty-year old) Zeffirelli/Puccini production at the Met. Apparently, the cognescenti scoff at the luxurious productions -- but at these prices, the more the merrier.  If you're going to see classic Italian opera, why not stuff the stage with spectacle? As if the melodrama

Big Fish Tim Burton's followup to his over-wrought and unfun Planet of the Apesis a delightful romantic fantasy complete with a Wonderful-Life finale. That said, the film's episodic nature and desperate sincerity doesn't leave much of an aftertaste to enjoy. While the whole may be less than the sum of

Madama Butterfly, Metropolitan Opera Another glorious production from the Met. Veronica Villarroel's Cio-Cio, the young woman as delicate as a butterfly, sang rapturously of her love for the American naval officer Pinkerton. In return, the Met audience gave her a rapturous ovation, complete with thrown bouquets and cherry-blosson confetti. Pinkerton