Arts Reviews

We live in an age in which everything sounds so grave. Our democracy is in peril! Covid numbers are going up! It’s a cause for rejoicing, then, that one of the best new series treats that most serious of subjects — namely, homicide — with such a deft and delightful touch. Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which was created by co-star Steve Martin and John Hoffman, expands the honorable tradition of the Thin Man series and Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, movies that used the murder-mystery format as a pretext for their sophisticated urbanites to poke around in other people’s residences and speculate wittily on who done it. The series wraps up its second season on Tuesday.

I should have known when the Disney+ logo splashed across the screen. The last time I saw it, what followed was an impassable disclaimer warning me of the microaggressions I might endure watching a pair of Asian cats. I should have known when we landed again in San Fransokyo — the setting of Disney’s Big Hero 6 and new spinoff, Baymax! — and the cast looked like bad stock art from the Oberlin College DEI handbook. I should have known. But, there I was, two sick kids (two and six) running 102-degree fevers, upset and crying, nestled on either side of me on the couch. We just needed a break. Something wholesome; simple; happy. This was Disney’s sweet spot. Earlier this month Disney+ reported reaching 221.

When Bryce Dallas Howard signed her contract for the Jurassic World franchise, she didn’t get as big of a deal as her co-star Chris Pratt. This is not shocking news. At the time, Pratt was already an established star, whereas Howard’s résumé was much thinner. She’d played some unnamed roles in a handful of movies and portrayed supporting characters in two Twilight films and Spider-Man 3, but had yet to break out in a starring role. Jurassic World changed all that. This prompted Pratt to step in for Howard and handle the negotiations for licensing deals related to the franchise, guaranteeing that he and Howard would be paid equally.

I was reprimanded by my parents for talking during the minute’s silence at Princess Diana’s funeral. In my defense, I was six years old at the time. Almost twenty-five years have passed since that fateful night in Paris, when the People’s Princess was pursued by the press one last time. In the years since, Diana’s legacy has hung over not just the British royal family, but the relationship between society and celebrity. Her death marked one of the first real moments of global introspection: was our paparazzi too invasive, our press too dogged? We now look back at the media’s treatment of Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Lindsay Lohan and ask the same questions. But it all goes back to Di.

On a Saturday in August, stuck in Manhattan  and growing less enamored of the thought, I holed up at the Park Avenue Armory to catch English director Robert Icke’s Hamlet (2015) and Oresteia (2017), playing in repertory. Icke is a darling young thing on the British theater scene, “acclaimed,” as the program informs us, “for his intelligent and accessible productions” of classic texts. Hamlet runs for three hours and forty minutes, Oresteia for three fifteen, which gives you some idea of what is meant (or not) by “accessible.” These are big, bold productions. But for what it’s worth, the cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall proved accessible to a packed crowd.

The author Neil Gaiman is one of the comparatively few writers who really understands how to use social media. Not only does he have nearly 3 million followers under the handle @neilhimself, his bio self-deprecatingly insists he will "eventually grow up and get a proper job," though "until then, he will keep making things up and writing them down." Gaiman is a prolific tweeter, interacting with his millions of admirers in a joyful and unpretentious way. I once had an edifying conversation with him around the time that my biography of Lord Rochester, Blazing Star, was published. Gaiman is a fully paid-up Rochester aficionado, and was gracious and generous with his time and appreciation.

Although it’s not exactly my cinematic bag, I understand why people were looking forward to Batgirl. It is a superhero film (as so many are these days), but with a potentially interesting female lead, namely Barbara Gordon, aka "Batgirl," the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Batman’s ally. The film attracted a starry cast, including J.K. Simmons as Gordon, Brendan Fraser as the sociopathic antagonist Ted Carson, aka "Firefly," and Michael Keaton gamely reprising his Batman role. It cost $90 million, was directed by the filmmakers responsible for the surprisingly entertaining Bad Boys For Life, and might have been expected to be a modest box office hit: at the very least, it should have provided a couple hours of undemanding entertainment.

It's been four years since pop superstar Taylor Swift went full lib. After years of speculation over her political leanings (her silence on issues led some to believe she was a secret Trump supporter), Swift urged her fellow Tennessee residents to vote against the "appalling" and "terrifying" Republican Marsha Blackburn for Senate. "I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values," Swift wrote in an Instagram post. Since then, Swift has been outspoken about her pro-choice, anti-gun, and anti-Trump views.