Print Edition - January 24, 2011
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For the kind of wrenching, blatantly ironic flourish that opera is known for--"You should know that was your brother you just killed"--there's really nothing that can beat the end of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. The audience watches as dawn breaks over a prison in Rome. The year is 1800. Just a few minutes ago, we heard Scarpia, the corrupt, lecherous police chief, promise the title character, an opera diva, that Mario Cavaradossi, her condemned lover and... MORE >
"We have, in New York, the best actors in the world," wrote the estimable Village Voice critic Michael Feingold last week in reviewing Adam Bock's A Small... MORE >
Chloë Sevigny was standing a few feet from the DJ booth, swaying in a polka-dot dress and a black beret. Sometime around midnight she had started drinking Patrón against her will. “It’s not my favorite,” she told The Observer Saturday night, talking not two centimeters from our nose. The Human League was wailing on the sound system, and the leather-and-denim-clad crowd was singing... MORE >
By Lee Siegel | January 18, 2011 | 8:23 pm
No sooner had the blood dried in that Tucson parking lot and the body of 9-year-old Christina Green been lowered into the ground than "a large slice of educated America," as David Brooks put it with his usual flair for evocative language, immediately switched its attention to one of the great issues of our day: Chinese parenting vs. American... MORE >
By The Editors | January 18, 2011 | 7:19 pm
It's hardly a secret that the Obama White House and the Netanyahu government don't always see eye to eye. Nor is it a news break to note that some, perhaps even many, Americans disagree with Israeli policy on a range of issues, many of them, of course, related to ongoing tensions with the Palestinians. There have been times, especially in recent years, when the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem has threatened to become... MORE >
By
Rex Reed | January 18, 2011 | 8:57 pm
Painstakingly shot, frame by frame, and with accurate writing and impeccable performances, and guided by the great Australian director Peter Weir's impressive trademark attention to detail, The Way Back saves January from the dumpster and triumphs as the first great film of... MORE >
I'm working on my personal brand. I don't want to be just a football player, a dumb jock who just throws balls in the air further and faster and more accurately than a few other guys (guys like Tom Brady). I want to be a whole human being. I want to have feelings, feelings that don't just have to do with beating the Patriots or the Steelers or Ben Roethlisberger or Tom Brady. I... MORE >
By The Editors | January 18, 2011 | 7:20 pm
The New York Jets are headed to a conference championship game for the second year in a row, which means that the team's blunderbuss of a coach, Rex Ryan, will have another opportunity to endear himself to the team's fans and alienate just about everybody else connected to the National Football League. That's a good thing--it's been a long time since so many people cared so much about the... MORE >
By
Rex Reed | January 18, 2011 | 8:49 pm
After a string of flops, the lovely, accomplished and underappreciated Natalie Portman achieved something of a career breakthrough in the pretentious horror flick Black Swan. Now, before the impact has worn off, and on the verge of an Oscar nomination, she crumbles like a mildewed crumpet. Short of breaking into the editing lab and destroying the negative, she should have done everything legally possible to stop the ill-timed release of a vulgar, stupid pile... MORE >
By Rachel Corbett | January 18, 2011 | 8:40 pm
Jonathan and Elizabeth Tisch's donation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art will build more than a new Costume Institute Gallery--it could canonize a new set of fashion-design superstars. Last week, the billionaire Tisches made a $10 million gift to the Met that will fund a 4,200-square-foot namesake gallery and state-of-the-art storage for the institute's 35,000-item archive, projects that have been little more than fund-raising fantasies for the Met for more than a decade. The couple's... MORE >
The murderer was very good-looking. As he walked into the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel around 6 p.m. that Friday night, he was freshly showered and wore a dark suit and a purple tie. Though by no means the only young European man to stride through the lobby that night, he must have turned a few heads. A woman waiting there recognized Renato Seabra. Wanda Pires, a friend of Mr. Seabra's travel companion, Carlos Castro... MORE >
By The Editors | January 18, 2011 | 7:18 pm
Schools Chancellor Cathie Black has made a point of being very visible and very audible since taking over from Joel Klein several weeks ago. We understand why. She has been trying to show her critics that she has a common touch, that she can relate to the real-life issues that the city's one million students face every day. But now is the time for Ms. Black to do fewer photo ops and less talking.... MORE >
By J. Gabriel Boylan | January 18, 2011 | 8:25 pm
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, better known as Tom Tom Club, seemed to have different ideas about why they left New York. “I was partying too hard,” Mr. Frantz told The Observer with a sigh and a so-sue-me shrug, “and I had to get that all sorted.” Ms. Weymouth frowned. “They turned the heat off after 4 p.m.!” she said, essentially dismissing Mr. Frantz’ claim. “I mean the place was great, and we loved the city... MORE >
To everything there is a season, and winter is antiques-buying season among the folks who do such things. A slew of shows, big and small, inexpensive and not, are crammed into the next few weeks. Winter Antiques Show Park Avenue Armory 67th St. & Park AvenueJan. 21-30; $20The high-society grande dame, now in its 57th year. Not cheap, the event is strong on Shaker furniture, classic American folk art, globes, gilt-edged mirrors, 18th-century clocks... MORE >
On a Tuesday night some weeks ago, at a jam-packed book party at Sidecar, the handsome upstairs space next to P.J. Clarke's on East 55th Street, Hugo Lindgren was leaning on the bar next to his deputy. The new editor of The New York Times Magazine had been on the job less than a month, and his coming reinvigoration of the once-great Sunday supplement was shaping up as one of the most exciting projects... MORE >
