THE BEATEN PATH

Lieutenant Commander Orlando is the kind of guy who deserves to be shot in the back. He tortures political prisoners by day, and just when his wife decides to take a trip, he inconveniences her by borrowing the strap from her suitcase to tie up his sex slave. Maria Irene…

THE BEATEN PATH

Lieutenant Commander Orlando is the kind of guy who deserves to be shot in the back. He tortures political prisoners by day, and just when his wife decides to take a trip, he inconveniences her by borrowing the strap from her suitcase to tie up his sex slave. Maria Irene…

GREAT SOCIETY’S CHILD

The Good Times Are Killing Me was a surprise off-Broadway hit a few years back, and the autobiographical play by syndicated cartoonist Lynda Barry–first a novel–tries to capture the mid-1960s Great Society frame of mind, when blacks were moving into aging, middle-class, white neighborhoods. Barry’s voice is that of Edna,…

THE BEATEN PATH

Lieutenant Commander Orlando is the kind of guy who deserves to be shot in the back. He tortures political prisoners by day, and just when his wife decides to take a trip, he inconveniences her by borrowing the strap from her suitcase to tie up his sex slave. Maria Irene…

THE BEATEN PATH

Lieutenant Commander Orlando is the kind of guy who deserves to be shot in the back. He tortures political prisoners by day, and just when his wife decides to take a trip, he inconveniences her by borrowing the strap from her suitcase to tie up his sex slave. Maria Irene…

GREAT SOCIETY’S CHILD

The Good Times Are Killing Me was a surprise off-Broadway hit a few years back, and the autobiographical play by syndicated cartoonist Lynda Barry–first a novel–tries to capture the mid-1960s Great Society frame of mind, when blacks were moving into aging, middle-class, white neighborhoods. Barry’s voice is that of Edna,…

WED AND BURIED

Weddings, or incipient weddings, are the traditional tags of English comedy. The idea is, if everybody ends up paired off at the end, then everything must have worked out all right. Director Mike Newell, a Brit not known as a laugh riot until recently–he gave us Dance With a Stranger…

FERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Belle Epoque, is set “somewhere in Spain”–somewhere rural and sun-dappled and placidly lovely–in 1931. It wasn’t such a beautiful epoch elsewhere in Spain that year, what with the mad, factional contentions by which the Second Republic was beginning its brief existence before…

WED AND BURIED

Weddings, or incipient weddings, are the traditional tags of English comedy. The idea is, if everybody ends up paired off at the end, then everything must have worked out all right. Director Mike Newell, a Brit not known as a laugh riot until recently–he gave us Dance With a Stranger…

FERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Belle Epoque, is set “somewhere in Spain”–somewhere rural and sun-dappled and placidly lovely–in 1931. It wasn’t such a beautiful epoch elsewhere in Spain that year, what with the mad, factional contentions by which the Second Republic was beginning its brief existence before…

FERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Belle Epoque, is set “somewhere in Spain”–somewhere rural and sun-dappled and placidly lovely–in 1931. It wasn’t such a beautiful epoch elsewhere in Spain that year, what with the mad, factional contentions by which the Second Republic was beginning its brief existence before…

WED AND BURIED

Weddings, or incipient weddings, are the traditional tags of English comedy. The idea is, if everybody ends up paired off at the end, then everything must have worked out all right. Director Mike Newell, a Brit not known as a laugh riot until recently–he gave us Dance With a Stranger…

FERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Belle Epoque, is set “somewhere in Spain”–somewhere rural and sun-dappled and placidly lovely–in 1931. It wasn’t such a beautiful epoch elsewhere in Spain that year, what with the mad, factional contentions by which the Second Republic was beginning its brief existence before…

WED AND BURIED

Weddings, or incipient weddings, are the traditional tags of English comedy. The idea is, if everybody ends up paired off at the end, then everything must have worked out all right. Director Mike Newell, a Brit not known as a laugh riot until recently–he gave us Dance With a Stranger…

CASTING ASPERSIONS

Since 1979, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have lived in the dark heart of the South Bronx, collaborating on the making and painting of plaster life casts of the habitus of the inner-city neighborhood once described by writer Jane Kramer as “arguably one of [New York’s] poorest, saddest, shabbiest, most…

CASTING ASPERSIONS

Since 1979, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have lived in the dark heart of the South Bronx, collaborating on the making and painting of plaster life casts of the habitus of the inner-city neighborhood once described by writer Jane Kramer as “arguably one of [New York’s] poorest, saddest, shabbiest, most…

FLEECE CIRCUS

Lampooning the shysters of evangelism has kept satirists busy ever since the faithful realized that the price of salvation was an empty pocket. What’s even more hilarious, the faithful never quite seem to grasp what’s going on. So I expected Lloyd’s Prayer to be funnier than it was. But playwright…

FLEECE CIRCUS

Lampooning the shysters of evangelism has kept satirists busy ever since the faithful realized that the price of salvation was an empty pocket. What’s even more hilarious, the faithful never quite seem to grasp what’s going on. So I expected Lloyd’s Prayer to be funnier than it was. But playwright…

HOOP AND GLORY

Because Joel and Ethan Coen are such a couple of precocious sophomores, it’s not hard to find them annoying, or to wish to debunk them. The trouble is, there’s no denying that they always put on a great show. Even when they aren’t sure what they’re doing, as with Barton…

NIELSEN RATING

Suppose you were to travel backward in time to, say, 20 years ago. You start telling the people you meet about life in the 90s: The Berlin Wall is gone, the Soviet empire is in ruins, Virginia is the first state to have elected an African-American governor, and a Democratic…

NIELSEN RATING

Suppose you were to travel backward in time to, say, 20 years ago. You start telling the people you meet about life in the 90s: The Berlin Wall is gone, the Soviet empire is in ruins, Virginia is the first state to have elected an African-American governor, and a Democratic…

HOOP AND GLORY

Because Joel and Ethan Coen are such a couple of precocious sophomores, it’s not hard to find them annoying, or to wish to debunk them. The trouble is, there’s no denying that they always put on a great show. Even when they aren’t sure what they’re doing, as with Barton…