The Invisible Counterpoint

Transcendence  In a recent New Yorker we learned that many of those earning instant fortunes for their apps are feeling pretty guilty about it. It's pretty tough, they proclaim, to enjoy your millions when you're aware of just how hard and rewardless a life your own mother had to make due with. Specifically, though to make their apps they "borrowed office space and subsisted on a diet of instant ramen," though they knew "in the back of [their] heads […] [how] hard you worked, that you sacrificed your stability and you took on the risk of financial ruin for a long while," that "[y]ou did things that other people were not willing or capable of," it still "feels awful," for they "couldn't get rid of the image of [their] mothers in [their] cars, driving to work." The truth is, that if the only thing they had to contend with was the fact that their mothers had much harder lives, they've already amply contended with it a...

The Tourist is one of those movies that will leave some viewers scratching their heads, wondering why there isn’t more action, more snazzy editing, more obvious crackle between its stars, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. But I suspect the people who get The Tourist will simply adore it: It’s the kind of espionage caper that doesn’t get made anymore, a visually sensuous picture made with tender attention to detail and an elegant, understated sense of humor. (Stephanie Zacharek, Espionage Caper The Tourist Offers Mystery and Glamour, Plus Depp and Jolie, “Movieline,” 9 Dec. 2010) KEY SPOILER ALERT (First consideration) She is really good and appropriate in this picture. Something about how Angelina refuses the viewer, and her spare personality, works to remind you to attend to everything else perfectly worthwhile in the picture. Elegance, a sure splendor of it -- it's hard to imagine anything making an appearance in the film that wasn't (as Stephanie says, tenderly a...