Word: postmodernity
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MOVIES . . . THE FIFTH ELEMENT: "To say 'The Fifth Element,' even though it is set in 2259, induces a powerful sense of d?j? vu is to say nothing useful about it," says TIME's Richard Schickel. "For it is science fiction in the postmodern -- well, anyway, the post?'Blade Runner' -- mode. Its true subjects are art direction, special effects and the show-off panache with which its director and co-writer, Luc Besson, deploys them." Besson's energy and inventiveness are considerable and, up to a point, quite entertaining. Indeed, one could argue that his work offers a distinct kinetic improvement...
...Glass Menagerie. An old chestnut by our favorite postmodern American playwright, Tennessee Williams. Tickets: $5 students, $7 everyone else. Agassiz Theater...
...John Wayne's America (Simon & Schuster; 380 pages; $26) Garry Wills imagines that this must tell us something about the soul of postmodern America. And perhaps it does. But by the end of his confused and digressive meditation, this usually mordant cultural historian looks rather like a second heavy in a Wayne western--rubbing his jaw and spitting dust as the Duke's shade strides off toward the horizon, as impervious to academic analysis as he was to a bad man's six-shooter...
...Paris last week, fashion's famous let their wilder ideas go to models' heads. At Christian Dior, Oriental wigs covered up the famous tresses of the likes of CINDY CRAWFORD (far left). Givenchy stylists put others in hedge-like mop tops. Issey Miyake seemed to be aiming for the postmodern haystack, while KATE MOSS'S wedge (second from left) almost distracted from Chanel's most unbusinesslike bikini-and-woolen-suit ensemble...
...tradition of the Grand Guignol, because the production never explains why it bothers to resurrect these influences. There is some thing to be said for paying attention to pieces of theatrical history that many historians would like to sweep under the rug, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari exhibits postmodern tendencies by creating a Guignol play-within-a-play. But while the production has its own modernized aesthetic, it remains essentially a fragment of the past. Even with all its technical wizardry, this production doesn't add nearly enough contemporary insight to offer anything more than a colorful and inexplicable...