Word: postmodernity
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Some people are talented enough to do whatever they want with their careers. Few of them actually do it. Beck is among the few. After 1999's Midnite Vultures, essentially a postmodern rap comedy album, what Beck wants to do is be direct. Sea Change, his seventh and best album (out this week), is a simple affair. It's a breakup record--almost all the songs are ballads--with a slight country-blues feel. There's little of Beck's trademark musical schizophrenia and none of his arch humor. "I just wanted the record to be simple and clean...
...what would an optimal postmodern diet look like? Chances are it wouldn't look like the food pyramid, the official government guidelines released by the usda in 1992. Indeed, the food pyramid is due for an overhaul in 2003--although no one is yet willing to give any details. If Harvard's Willett has his way, the pyramid will make a greater distinction between the types of fats and carbs we should and shouldn't eat. Willett, unlike the usda, does not lump most carbohydrates at the pyramid's base or all fats at the pyramid's eat-sparingly pinnacle...
...minimum of window or entryway cuts in its lower half. The mostly windowless exterior and the Spanish-mission-style walls that surround the entire compound can make the church seem to be holding itself apart from the city. The edgy silhouette is both familiar and new, not a postmodern replica of Spanish missions but a sophisticated recollection of them, one filtered through the jagged memory of the urbanized era that followed theirs. At its skyline it has the excitement of the new, but it beckons you into the past...
Poor Viktor. He does his best to turn Simone into something Garbo-like, but that's hard to do when the media are in one of their postmodern feeding frenzies. He's soon running around like a fugitive in a three-door farce. Pacino, with his sad, baggy eyes and slightly depressed air, is perfect as the harassed auteur of his own misery. And writer-director Andrew Nicoll is a visually witty operative with a nice ear for the verbal side of Hollywood lunacy as well. Sure, Simone will put you in mind of Wag the Dog, in which...
...Martel's postmodern frame and half twist of an ending both reinforce his religious themes and inject a bracing dose of uncertainty. Is Pi a trustworthy raconteur? When the story is this satisfying, it doesn't really matter. Martel leaves all claims open-ended, like his protagonist's limitless faith. If Life of Pi is not quite a story to make you believe in God, it may convince you that when it comes to existence, we're all in the same boat...