Wednesday, March 21, 2012

We're all about recovery here...

Word of the day : weltanschauung : worldview ; a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

Cindy Sherman (#14)

There's a lot to write about about this influential American artist.  Here's a good, definitive biography of her from her own website:

http://www.cindysherman.com/biography.shtml

And here is an info about a current exhibition of her work at MOMA:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1170







I'm getting excited at the (potential) prospect of moving to Alabama, especially after checking out this website: http://www.alabama.travel/

Carnage, Roman Polanski's adaptation of Yasmina Reza's Tony-winning play (Polanski co-wrote the screenplay with Reza), is light Polanski, savage and funny in turns, if not especially memorable.  It's about two couples who have come together to discuss an incident that occurred between their two sons: the son of the parents played by Kate Winslet (defensive, argumentative) and Christoph Waltz (ice-cold, tuned-out, always on his cell phone) struck another boy in the face with a stick, causing the boy to lose two teeth.  The parents of the injured boy are played by Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly.  Over the course of an hour or so, the couples bicker, argue, assign blame, deflect guilt, get drunk, turn on their respective others, defend themselves, lash out, strut their feathers, ignore each other.  This is a good subject for Polanski - the breakdown of modern discourse, the inability of four people to have a dialogue - and, as expected, he excels in making a staged play come alive, with his typical tight framing emphasizing a claustrophobic, stifling world without escape.  It's blissfully short and the performers do well: Waltz, with his reptilian visage, has a persnickety remove.  It's Foster's show, however, and she exhibits tremendous range playing an unlikable do-gooder, simultaneously pacifying and passive-aggressive, smart and annoying.  (***)

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