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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for December 27, 2005

OGIC: And furthermore

December 27, 2005 by Terry Teachout

Last night I posted links to outstanding recent examples of blogger criticism, struck yet again by how thoroughly some bloggers are outperforming their counterparts in print. Now this morning I discover Tim Hulsey’s fantastic post on Brokeback Mountain that has determined me to see the film. Here’s a clip that gets to the heart of the matter:

For most of the film, Lee seems content to exploit and subvert convention, while subtly teaching his audiences new and more humane ways to experience cinema. In the closing scenes, however, Brokeback Mountain careens into what for most American audiences will be emotional terra incognita, with grief too deep for words or tears. In a way, the film is designed to prepare us for these final moments, when we’re compelled to identify with a form of love that most of us have been conditioned not to take seriously. The film is a plea for empathy, not just in society or politics but in the American cinema as a whole–and it is in this last regard that Brokeback may be most revolutionary.

You should read the whole beautifully written, assiduously contextualized piece. Very little in current newspaper or magazine film criticism is the equal of Tim’s work here or, indeed, the reviews I linked to in the post immediately below. I find rampant blogger triumphalism just as annoying as the next person, but to say that blogs like My Stupid Dog are lapping the print media seems to me to be simply stating the facts.

OGIC: Until my head stops spinning

December 27, 2005 by Terry Teachout

I’m back in Chicago tonight, much against my will, and I’m afraid I don’t have much left in the tank, figuratively or literally. Christmas was lovely but it was brutally compressed and fleeting. Can it have been only yesterday? My family was in nonstop action from ten in the morning until eleven at night, and when I awoke this morning the bags had to be packed and loaded, the kitty-cat medicated (pink calm-down pills to which she seems impervious), the road hit.


I’m kind of expecting the day at work tomorrow to shred me. But I hope and plan nevertheless to get something of some substance up here in the evening, however folded, spindled, and mutilated I may emerge. In the meantime, allow me to point you toward worthy content elsewhere:

– Cinetrix gifts us with not one, but two reviews of recent films over at Pullquote. They are David Cronenberg’s History of Violence and Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale. Baumbach’s film KIcking and Screaming recently made my Meme of Four list. (She also had a grade-A celeb sighting to ring in the holidays.)


– Quiet Bubble, a recent discoverer of Jane Austen, has posted a typically sharp review of the newest film adaptation. QB just gets better and better.


– Top-ten lists of the year’s best cultural offerings are well and good and, well, unavoidable. I prefer the tack taken by M.S. Smith at CultureSpace, a brief conversational essay that doesn’t confine itself to things that were new in 2005, but to things that were new to Smith. This has been up for a couple of weeks already, for all of which time I’ve been meaning to link to it. If I were to make a list of my top ten cultural discoveries of 2005, CultureSpace and Quiet Bubble would definitely be on it.


– More bookishly, Newsday has a round-up of several critics’ favorite reads of the year. Among the experts are ALN blogroll mainstays Maud Newton and James Marcus. Remember, many of the books named will be published in paperback right around the corner (herein, I think, lies the real usefulness of these lists, to remind us of everything we failed to read but can soon read more cheaply by virtue of lagging).

Finally, an administrative note. I owe several of you email. Thanks awfully for writing, and please bear with me one more day. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.

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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