Georgia on my mind (1/19/01)
____________
The Virgin Suicides. [Sofia Coppola, 1999. After a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides.]
The voice of Giovanni Ribisi narrates yet another rosyhued tale of suburban life [this time in Seventies Michigan] about four beautiful high school blonde sisters [Kirsten Dunst takes point] awash in obsessive adolescent love — and: their dead sister; their pathologically strict Catholic mother [Kathleen Turner], who burns their Aerosmith records; their nerd mathteacher father [James Woods],who wears funny glasses and talks to himself; their station wagon; the circle of adoring adolescent males that surround them; their trip to the Prom; their yearning to escape; and their plot to run away from home — which comes to naught because, abruptly, the girls all kill themselves. — The stock character of the grasping female television journalist, promoting herself by exploiting the misery of others, is becoming tiresome. But the final cocktail party, at which the auto-industry rich wear gasmasks with their evening clothes, is priceless: Michael Moore meets Buñuel. — As directorial debuts of famous auteurs’ daughters go, this isn’t up to the [admittedly daunting] standard of
Boxing Helena. But give the poor little rich girl a big cigar; and maybe she, unlike Jennifer Lynch, will get another chance.
____________Old English (1/14/01)
