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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 13, 2003

OGIC: And then some

October 13, 2003 by Terry Teachout

Last week, literary blogger Maud Newton wondered aloud whether Lost in Translation was really as good as its press and word-of-mouth suggested. I finally made it to the movie last night [aside: according to the terms of our deal, Terry, you are now bound to see School of Rock, and, we hope, report back here!] and can give Maud my two cents: yes, at least that good.


It’s deft and gorgeous. I can’t remember ever being so ravished and heartened by a story of, essentially, renunciation. Most of the reviewers I’d read emphasized the film’s delicacy, subtlety, understatement–and these are in fact its defining qualities. But this characterization led me to expect a sort of charming, airy souffl

OGIC: Keywords

October 13, 2003 by Terry Teachout

I never noticed before today that my thesaurus, Roget’s International, includes definition-quotations from famous writers for certain words, like “love” and “memory.” Some of the bundlings of quotations read like miniature epigrammatic debates.


This example tells a tart little history of the fortunes of the word it explicates:

TASTE, TASTEFULNESS


“good sense delicately put in force”–Ch

OGIC: Coming attractions, the game

October 13, 2003 by Terry Teachout

When I was waiting to see Lost in Translation last night, there were plenty of new trailers. This meant a perfect chance to play the thumb game. It’s simple: the moment a trailer ends, each participant votes thumbs-up or thumbs-down, Siskel-and-Ebert-style. There are two rules: your verdict must be instantaneous (in demanding a snap decision, this game shares in the spirit of “In the Bag”), and, most crucially, there is no middle ground. Period. A horizontal or flickering thumb is grounds for no popcorn. And that’s about it; there’s no winning or losing, just the need to publicly commit to a judgment before sussing out what everyone else you’re with thinks, and live with the consequences.


The trouble is, these days even trailers for good movies are pretty reliably awful, so anyone voting thumbs-up for anything risks having to absorb a lot of abuse and condescension for the rest of the evening. Depending on how tough the crowd is, and how honest, it can make things more interesting to require each player to vote thumbs-up at least once or twice, no matter how dismal the offerings.


Drastic measures weren’t necessary last night, though, since there were a couple of advertised films that actually looked pretty good. Here’s my scorecard:

In America: New Jim Sheridan looks faintly autobiographical, but seemingly centers not on Irish starving-artist

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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