Odd, isn't it? Over half of all marriages end in divorce, but movies that deal with the painful process itself are few and far between. What accounts for this discrepancy?
Don't blame Jesse Ventura and Bill Bradley if sports and politics are becoming indistinguishable.
"Fight Club" is a movie to endure, not to enjoy. But it may well merit a second viewing. David Fincher's brutal examination of the fractured male psyche rips an open sore in your soul.
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are gracing magazine covers and yakking on talk shows to promote "Fight Club," one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the season.
Last year, in "Six Days, Seven Nights," Harrison Ford's character survived a plane crash. Now, in "Random Hearts," Ford plays Dutch Van Den Broeck, who suffers a far more harrowing catastrophe - he must deal with his wife's demise after her plane goes down.
The idea of a digital art display certainly is a strange one. Manipulating colors and shapes with a computer to create an artistic statement can seem hands-off and impersonal when compared to the physical acts of painting or sculpting.
So maybe the Charlottesville music scene is a little lacking these days. There's the eighth Baaba Seth concert of the month, George Melvin is playing at the Boar's Head Inn and maybe University Union has booked some unexceptional band.
While talk of Y2K damage estimates and Armageddon predictions rule America's consciousness, the 1990s are in a dark corner somewhere weeping.
America loves its cars. There's just something about that lime green station wagon's wood paneling that evokes a certain nostalgia - or, at the very least, brings Greg Brady to mind. For Rosemarie Fiore, a visiting faculty member in the McIntire Department of Art, the automobile goes beyond drive-ins, Route 66 and backseat sibling rivalry.
The falseness of the suburban ideal, the restrictive nature of middle-class social and gender roles, the redemptive power of beauty in a world gone mad: These ideas have been developed before, in art and theater, literature and film, but rarely so compellingly as in "American Beauty." Richly structured, darkly comic and devastatingly well acted, "American Beauty" is the kind of cinema we desperately need but rarely see.
A clear and simple message is spraypainted on the New York City set of the Drama department's production of Jose Rivera's "Marisol": "Wake up!" Intended to cry out against social injustice, this message may appeal more directly to the audience's attention span.
Director David O. Russell is like a kid let loose in a candy store. And like a good little boy, he's sharing. It's not easy to make the transition from independent films to the realm of Hollywood.
Anyone who goes to see the "The Dinner Game" hoping for a plateful of pure farce is going to be disappointed.
The falseness of the suburban ideal, the restrictive nature of middle-class social and gender roles, the redemptive power of beauty in a world gone mad: These ideas have been developed before, in art and theater, literature and film, but rarely so compellingly as in "American Beauty." Richly structured, darkly comic and devastatingly well acted, "American Beauty" is the kind of cinema we desperately need but rarely see.
A clear and simple message is spraypainted on the New York City set of the Drama department's production of Jose Rivera's "Marisol": "Wake up!" Intended to cry out against social injustice, this message may appeal more directly to the audience's attention span.
Director David O. Russell is like a kid let loose in a candy store. And like a good little boy, he's sharing. It's not easy to make the transition from independent films to the realm of Hollywood.
In a time when manufactured bubblegum pop artists dominate the airwaves, it is nice to know that two folksy chicks from Georgia still know how to rock. In their seventh and most recent album "Come on Now Social," the Indigo Girls prove that music goes beyond 17-year-old Barbie clones who can dance.
Check your local listings; chances are there's a documentary all about you on TV tonight. The show will feature some of your favorite memories, recount pivotal moments in your life, chronicle your changing interests over time and, fortunately for you, conclude with a happy ending.
