Author: Mary Beth

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Breach

In theaters.

I wasn’t interested in seeing Breach, the new based-on-real-events movie about the capture of FBI mole Robert Hanssen. The previews looked conventional, and the star, Ryan Phillippe, has never been a favorite of mine. Then I saw that it had been written (with two others) and directed by Billy Ray, and my attitude changed immediately. Ray is no big-name auteur, but he is responsible for Shattered Glass, a meticulously crafted gem of docudrama and a real favorite of mine.

Ray’s scrupulous attention to detail impresses me each time I see Glass, which tells the story of a scandal at The New Republic magazine, the revelation that one of the writers had been passing off outrageous fiction as fact. Surely the earlier film’s thoughtful, thought-provoking examination of why we believe lies and how they go unnoticed would translate well to a story of deception and betrayal at the FBI. But Breach failed to live up to the promise of Shattered Glass. It didn’t give me as much to think about, and it didn’t capture my imagination.

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Contemporary Quartet

The New York City Ballet on Sunday, February 11.

Carousel is the quintessential example of great music paired with an asinine story, so whoever had the idea to create a short, essentially plotless ballet using the musical’s swooning, long-lined waltz and elegant song orchestrations was a genius. You get the pleasure of “If I Loved You” (one of my all-time favorite songs) and some lovely romantic dancing without having to sit through the apologia for domestic violence or the silly celestial intervention or the outrageously heavy-handed graduation scene.

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Balanchine and Robbins: Masters at Work

The New York City Ballet on Saturday, February 10.

Dybbuk premiered in 1974 and failed to earn a prominent place in the City Ballet’s repertory. Looking at its pedigree—music by Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins—I didn’t understand how that had happened, but having seen the 2007 revival, I do. Dybbuk is slack and distant and unabsorbing. It’s just not that good.

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A Spot of Bother

By Mark Haddon. Published in 2006.

In his acclaimed debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon convincingly describes the interior monologue of an autistic boy. In A Spot of Bother, his subject seems more modest—four ordinary people—but perhaps that appearance is deceptive. After all, the vast majority of readers don’t know how it feels to be autistic, but they do know how it feels to clash with a parent or child or sibling or romantic partner, so they’re more likely to notice if the interior monologues in Bother seem off.

To my ear, A Spot of Bother did occasionally ring false—a bit too clean, a bit too pat—but the novel’s quiet, unassuming gentleness kept me absorbed nonetheless.

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Arrested Development

All three seasons on DVD.

My brother, Michael, and I both own all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD. We’ve seen most of the episodes numerous times. We know much of the dialogue by heart and often start giggling before the show actually reaches the punch line. So when my father and he visited for a few days, Michael, Sean, and I decided to introduce Dad to our dear departed sitcom.

It wasn’t a careless decision because offering TV or movie recommendations is risky in our family. My Aunt Mary Sue and Uncle George still give my parents a hard time for suggesting they see Annie Hall, which my aunt and uncle did not enjoy as much as Mom and Dad did, to put it mildly. (Annie Hall came out in 1977, by the way, which ought to give you some idea of the longevity of cheerfully held grudges in our clan.)

Fortunately for us, Dad was soon bawling with laughter at the bizarre, ribald, perverse antics of the Bluth family. Too little, too late, but Arrested Development has won another devoted fan.

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Good Girl/Bad Girl

Maude Maggart at the Algonquin Hotel on Saturday, January 27.

One of the many things that annoy me about American Idol (which I watch occasionally out of morbid curiosity) is the way the judges throw around the word cabaret like an insult. I understand that they’re looking for a pop star, not a chanteuse, but to dismiss an entire genre, a great tradition of American music, with such carelessness strikes me as unseemly.

I think part of the problem is the implicit assumption that cabaret is monotonous—invariably a low-voiced, cigarette smoker drearily husking her way through songs of the 1930s and ’40s—and that’s grossly unfair. Thirty-one-year-old Maude Maggart puts the lie to it immediately with her deliciously versatile voice. A skilled interpreter, she expressively modulates from rich and sultry to breezy and girlish or brassy and bold or warm and full to match the mood of each song she sings. The effect is hypnotic. On Saturday night my brother and I hung on her every note.

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Achoo!

Regular readers (hi, Mom!) will notice the unusually long absence between entries.

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Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7

The New York Philharmonic on Thursday, January 11.

Is there a rule that since the legendary Jacqueline du Pré made Elgar’s Cello Concerto her signature piece, the work now belongs solely to young, photogenic female cellists? That was my first thought when twenty-four-year-old Alisa Weilerstein walked onstage Thursday night, but I’m being flip, of course, and dreadfully unfair. Weilerstein delivered a ravishing performance of the concerto with the New York Philharmonic, and perhaps the work lends itself to younger soloists. Although Edward Elgar composed it quite late in his career, the cello concerto’s passionate intensity can feel quite youthful.

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Children of Men

In theaters.

My brother and I—along with a variable assortment of family members—usually go to the movies on Christmas night, but this year we stayed home. None of the new releases really inspired me. I didn’t feel like a Motown musical, and the post-apocalyptic Children of Men looked too grim for the holiday.

I finally made it to Children of Men this past weekend and soon realized I was wrong about it not being a good Christmas movie. It’s definitely grim, but it’s grim in a way that’s perfectly appropriate for Christmas. As bleak and frightening as director Alfonso CuarĂ³n’s latest film is, it scratches out a bleary, hard-fought sense of hope. Beautifully acted, beautifully crafted, and beautifully told, it’s my favorite movie of 2006. That’s why it’s taken me so damn long to write about it.

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Sleeping Beauty

The New York City Ballet on Thursday, January 4.

Could there be a more passive heroine than Princess Aurora, better known as Sleeping Beauty? She literally sleeps through most of the story, either as an infant or as the victim of a curse. That’s not her fault, of course, but neither does it make her a particularly compelling character.

The classic Tchaikovsky ballet, as choreographed by Peter Martins, drawing from the iconic work of Marius Pepita, remedies that by highlighting the Lilac Fairy as the story’s true heroine, even if she doesn’t get titular status. After evil Carabosse curses baby Aurora, the Lilac Fairy bravely counters the spell, downgrading spindle-induced death into a hundred-year slumber. When her spell takes effect, the good fairy safeguards the princess and her family by conjuring protective brambles around the castle. Then she finds a suitable prince, enchants him with a vision of the sleeping beauty, leads him to the castle, and helps cut away the thorny hedges. No wonder she takes center stage in the final tableau: the happy ending is entirely her doing.