Dead Like Me
Fridays at 10 p.m. ET, Showtime.
The cable network’s latest exercise in HBO envy raises at least one compelling question: is it possible to take a show seriously after the main character is killed off in the first 10 minutes by a toilet seat falling from the Mir space station? After her untimely death, 18-year-old Georgia Lass (Ellen Muth) finds afterlife employment as a “grim reaper”–basically, she’s the welcome wagon for the newly dead–and, along the way, learns to appreciate the life she no longer has. “Dead Like Me” wants to be “Six Feet Under’s” kooky kid brother, but this witless, graceless series is dead on arrival.
Nip/Tuck
Premieres July 22 at 10 p.m., FX.
Plastic surgeons. Miami. Cable TV. We are sooo there. “Nip/Tuck,” a drama about a pair of breast men, one an amoral playboy (Julian McMahon), the other a good-hearted square (Dylan Walsh), boasts the most sensational–and sensationalistic–hook for a series in recent memory. So it’s hardly fair to knock the show for lacking restraint. If you’re gonna go for it, after all, go for it. But the pilot is so insanely violent (a torture scene involving Botox is especially icky) that it obscures some snappy writing and two fine performances by McMahon and Walsh. We’ll keep watching–but either the blood goes or we do.
History Detectives
Premieres July 14 at 8 p.m., PBS.
Every small town has its treasured local legend. Did Ulysses S. Grant really sign the firehouse logbook? Did Bonnie and Clyde really spend a night in town during their crime spree? In this charming series, four gumshoe academics hop from town to town and use their expertise to determine whether the local legends hold water. The “detectives” aren’t exactly seasoned TV veterans, but that only ups the sincerity. Everyone involved takes these tiny mysteries seriously, and you’ll find yourself caring as much as they do.
MOVIES
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
Directed by McG
The casting of Bernie Mac as Bill Murray’s brother and John Cleese as Lucy Liu’s father is a fair tip-off that logic, coherence and credibility are not the issues here. In McG’s excitably decadent sequel the Angelic trio–Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore–must track down two rings encrypted with the names of– oh, you’ll see. The stars’ giggly, wiggly high spirits (and lots of taut skin) help distract us from the subpar f/x and a sound mix that renders many of the jokes inaudible. This is one of the silliest movies ever made–and lots of instantly forgettable fun.
The Eye
Directed by Oxide and Danny Pang
From the Hong Kong filmmaking twins comes this unnerving chiller about a blind woman (Lee Sin-je) who gets a corneal transplant. This turns out to be a mixed blessing: she gets both sight and second sight, enabling her to foresee impending catastrophes and consort with ghosts. The buildup, when everything remains a riddle, is far more satisfying than the explanation. But despite an overwrought finale, this stylish horror film is genuinely creepy. See it before the inevitable Hollywood remake.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Directed by Patrick Gilmore and Tim Johnson
Framed for stealing the Book of Life, the roguish Sinbad (voice: Brad Pitt) is saved from the chopping block when his friend Proteus (Joseph Fiennes) offers his own life as collateral so Sinbad can recover the sacred text. Despite the cool monsters, the cute slobbering dog and Catherine Zeta-Jones’s swashbuckling Marina, “Sinbad” comes off as surprisingly unmagical, with characters you only half care about. After you’ve seen “Finding Nemo,” the animation here feels secondhand.
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-15” author: “Andrea Gardiner”
By A. Scott Berg
A biographer by trade (Lindbergh, Sam Goldwyn), Berg was also close friends with Katharine Hepburn for two decades. Here biographer and friend work together, with uneven results. But the best man-the friend -wins. The good stuff is Berg just hanging out with Hepburn-and not missing a thing: she was proud of her hospital corners when she made a bed, and the more she liked a book, the more chocolate she smeared in the margins.
Girl Walks Into a Bar
By Strawberry Saroyan
This engaging memoir isn’t another saga of recovery. It’s about a New York girl in her 20s who builds disposable friendships, hustles as a Conde Nast editor and schmoozes with Tina Brown. But she comes to question her ideal of a “girl in heels, clicking away”-and walks off. Saroyan, granddaughter of novelist William and daughter of poet Aram, has introspection-and writing in her blood. Her coming-of-age tale will resonate with a generation of girls trying to become women in an image-driven society. -Nayelli Gonzalez
Twenty Days With Julian & Little Bunny by Papa
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
In this winning excerpt from his “American Notebooks,” Hawthorne spends time alone with his 5-year-old (and a pet). Like most parents, he’s enchanted by his child’smysterious inner life, and driven nuts by the nonstop need for attention. Unlike most, he gets to have Herman Melville drop by-though the self-absorbed Hawthorne gives us absolutely no sense of him. Julian bore cheerfully with his moody father, and his obsession with the Giant Despair in “Pilgrim’s Progress” (in 1851, this was kiddie lit) suggests he, too, had a gift for pre-Freudian symbolism. -David Gates
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-03” author: “Beth Asato”
Alicia Silverstone reinvents her adorable “Clueless” character as L.A. divorce lawyer Kate Hope, who fixes up clients and other lovelorn strays. Most of her matches misfire, but she’s still endearing. One sour note: a clunky Ryan O’Neal as Kate’s lawyer father, who runs the firm where she works. We’d like to see Kate partner up with Elle Woods from “Legally Blonde.” That’d be a match made in heaven.
Carnivale, Fridays at 10 p.m. ET, HBO
HBO’s riveting new series has gotten attention so far mostly for its dwarf costar (Michael J. Anderson) and its David Lynchian overtones. But “Carnivale,” about a traveling freak show in the Dust Bowl era, is really just an old-fashioned slugfest between good (Nick Stahl–at least we think he’s the good guy) and evil (Clancy Brown). Stahl, as a Messianic fugitive, is just right: those raccoon eyes make him look slightly crazed, as if his soul is still up for grabs. Assuming creator Daniel Knauf has enough tricks in his bag, HBO’s found another winner.
The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H.
Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET, CBS
After the cop (Randy Quaid) eating the doughnut, the two balding, middle-aged guys talking about the sex they’re not having with their spouses, the sweet-natured wife leading a class of singing kindergartners and the 17-year-old daughter flashing too much midriff, you’d think there wouldn’t be any more middle-class, Middle American stereotypes left for David E. Kelley’s new drama to exploit. Then the show’s first minority character shows up: a large black woman who’s–you guessed it–sassy. This series about “real people” suffers greatly from the absence of any real ones actually writing for it.
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-31” author: “Maria White”
Flying obsolete planes, Polish pilots didn’t have a chance against the German blitzkrieg in 1939. But those who escaped to Britain to regroup as the Kosciuszko Squadron demonstrated dazzling skill and courage, and downed more German planes in the Battle of Britain than any other squadron. Thus began a brief love affair (and many nonmetaphorical affairs) between the dashing Poles and the awed Brits. Olson and Cloud use the pilots’ story as the centerpiece of an impassioned, riveting account of Poland’s betrayal by Britain and the United States, which quickly forgot the Poles’ heroism in their rush to appease Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Saul and Patsy By Charles Baxter
Baxter (“The Feast of Love”) takes his sweet time introducing us to Saul, a high-school teacher in the Midwest, and Patsy, his wife, a bank loan officer. They’re that rarity in modern fiction–a likable couple in a good marriage–but just when we’re getting a little bored with them, tragedy strikes and things get interesting. Stick with this marvelously told story to the halfway mark and you won’t be able to put it down.
California Dish By Jeremiah Tower
No doubt Tower can dish, but he overserves (breathlessly quoting every nice thing ever said about him) and overshares: drugs (lots), sex (frequent and varied). He knew (and knew) them all: Richard Olney, James Beard, Alice Waters. He grabs credit for inventing foraging, grilling, local ingredients, mesquite and little pizzas. And it’s this passion that’s truly juicy: an omnivorous, lifelong fascination with food and cooking. Well traveled and better read, he thinks in menus, brings depth to the party. That’s the dish we believe. As for the California food revolution: go ask Alice.
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-21” author: “Melvin Hayes”
Directed by Jan de Bont
Nobody would claim that the first “Tomb Raider” was a tough act to follow, and this action-crammed sequel is a definite step up. The tale has the silly/ solemn flamboyance of an old Saturday-matinee serial, as Lady Croft (Angelina Jolie, looking swell) tries to find Pandora’s box before an evil scientist (Ciaran Hinds) gets there first. It’s not half bad, with cool locations and a great stunt leap from the top of a Hong Kong high-rise. Unlike the wink-winking “Charlie’s Angels,” “Croft 2” mostly, and wisely, keeps a straight face.
Camp
Directed by Todd Graff
A hilarious, rousing musical comedy set at a summer camp where nobody plays sports and everybody worships Stephen Sondheim. Writer-director Graff went to a theater camp when he was a kid; it shows in the dead-on details and the deep sympathy he has for these misfit showbiz kids. The boys, natch, are all gay, except for heartthrob Vlad (Daniel Letterle), the narcissistic love object of cross-dressing Michael (Robin de Jesus) and sweet, plain Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat). “Camp” may not be as slick as “Fame,” but it’s twice as funny and loads more honest.
Dirty Pretty Things
Directed by Stephen Frears
Like Frears’s marvelous “My Beautiful Laundrette,” this hypnotic, chilling thriller deals with people living in the margins: in this case, London’s exploited immigrants. The movie gets its hooks in you when our Nigerian hero (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers a human heart in a hotel toilet. Audrey Tautou plays his virginal Turkish roommate, and Sergi Lopez is the night manager who runs a horrific black-market business. Steven Knight’s smart, if overly plotted, script delivers social insights tautly wrapped in genre thrills.
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-08” author: “David Rierson”
Directed by Frank Oz
Maybe I’ve been robotized, but I laughed my way through this uneven comic remake of the 1975 thriller about a leafy suburb where the women are suspiciously compliant Barbie dolls. Sure, the film is pretty clunky, but the sendup of the world of McMansions and SUVs and the one-line zingers from screenwriter Paul Rudnick help make up for that. Glenn Close, Bette Midler and Roger Bart (who plays one half of a gay couple slated for Stepfordizing) are hilarious, and even Nicole Kidman flashes comedic gifts not seen since “To Die For.”
Napoleon Dynamite
Directed by Jared Hess
The awful perm, the total absence of physical grace, the alarming fascination with centaurs–we’ve met this kid before. But in this Sundance favorite, teen reject Napoleon Dynamite is transformed into the Herb with a heart of gold. This achingly funny film is a string of vignettes with no real plot, so it has periods of pointlessness–come to think of it, it’s all pointless. But it has “cult classic” written all over it.
The Chronicles of Riddick
Directed by David Twohy
Let’s face it, it was only a matter of time before Vin Diesel and Dame Judi Dench hooked up on a movie. Still, it takes guts to make a $100 million sequel to a film hardly anyone saw. Improbably, it all works. This space-odyssey companion to 2000’s “Pitch Black,” about a loner who saves the universe, suffers from some lazy imagination (a fiery hot planet is called… Crematoria) and even lazier plotting (he’s captured, he escapes, he’s captured, he–no way!–escapes). But Twohy knows how to shoot tense, bare-knuckle action, and his towering, gunmetal gray world is a fun sandbox to play in for two hours.
title: “Snap Judgement” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-24” author: “Donald Wilson”
Protestant Boy
by Geoffrey Beattie
In this honest, insightful memoir, Beattie revisits the North Belfast area in which he grew up, the notorious “murder triangle” where more than 600 people were killed during the Troubles. A psychology professor now living in Manchester, the author draws upon his training to explore his Ulster Protestant past, weaving together vivid stories of his family’s history–his grandfather’s experiences in the trenches of the Somme, his mother’s stubborn quirks–with the violence that unfolded outside his childhood home. Beattie’s enlightening memoir becomes our own window into the hearts and minds of a community drenched in blood.
Globalization: A Very Short Introduction
by Manfred B. Steger
It’s hard to think of a bigger topic than globalization–or a smaller format than the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series. I was skeptical that something compact enough to slip into my pocket could do justice to this complex subject. But in his smart survey, Steger sheds light on many aspects of the flow across borders of people, products, capital and ideas. And since one distinctive feature of globalization is that the pace of life is accelerating and the mobility of populations increasing, it is fitting that his book is such quick–and portable–read.
