The Lisbon Bunch

By Jennifer Makowsky

Purposefully ending one's life is often seen as a last act of personal desperation. But in Jefferey Eugenides' poignant, bewitching novel, it may actually be a form of salvation. [14 June 2007]

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Marie Antoinette (2006)

By Jake Meaney

Marie Antoinette's veneer is so impregnably varnished, so buffed to such an imposing sheen, that any attempt at critical ingress either bounces off of or slides down its glossy façade. [19 April 2007]

Marie Antoinette (2006)

By Cynthia Fuchs

A girl made queen by the peculiar forces of 18th-century statecraft, Marie is by turns amused, alarmed, and pissed off, mercurial and imperious as only a teenager can be. [20 October 2006]

Lost in Translation (2003)

By Sharon Mizota and Oliver Wang

Lost in Translation one-ups its peers with better music, prettier shots, and a more charismatic lead, but its racism is all the more insidious for being wrapped in a pleasing package. [23 February 2004]

Lost in Translation (2003)

By Cynthia Fuchs

. . . about seeing and not seeing at the same time, a series of incredibly precise, meticulous images of faces and hands and doorframes. [11 September 2003]

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

By Todd R. Ramlow

And yet, for its many pleasures, I find myself conflicted in thinking about The Virgin Suicides. [1 January 1995]

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

By Cynthia Fuchs

It's hardly a new idea, to read into adolescent girls' suicide something poetic, passionate, and deeply meaningful. Neither is it a secret that countless girls have admired Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman, seeing in their wounded and inviolate art reflections of themselves, their own pain and enchantment.