Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Friday, November 22, 2019

November 18, 2019 Issue


Anthony Lane says of James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari, “it may be his strongest film” (“Wheels Within Wheels,” in this week’s issue). I don’t think so. It isn’t nearly as strong as his great Walk the Line (2005). If you want to see snazzy editing, I recommend Ford v Ferrari. But be prepared for a sentimental, family-oriented picture in the Disney mold. Richard Brody, in his “The Airbrushed Racing History of Ford v. Ferrari” (newyorker.com, November 18, 2019), describes the racing in it as “sanitized.” That strikes me as just the right word for the whole movie.  
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)