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Missing New Orleans
•I’ve always kept a mental list of places about to disappear, such as the ruins of Angor Wat in Cambodia. Never — ever — was New Orleans on that list. My first visit to New Orleans was as a college student, driving 36 hours straight from Vermont to attend Mardi… -
More than "Just Legal"
•On Monday, Sept. 19, at 9 p.m., the WB will premiere “Just Legal.†Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the current home-run king of TV, this is no “C.S.I.†clone, but rather a one-hour drama with occasional comic moments that is about the beauty, the promise, the reality and the heartbreak that… -
A Nobel Approach to Hungarians
•By this point in the summer, I know that my devoted Tommywood readers are all wondering the same thing — be they sitting by the pool at the Sociéte des Bains de Mer in Monte Carlo, on their yachts sailing off the coast of Turkey or schvitzing in their New… -
A Read on Life (novels by Zweibel and Rosen)
•Lately, I’ve been thinking about two novels I recently enjoyed: “The Other Shulman†by Alan Zweibel (Villard, $23.95), and “Joy Comes in the Morning†by Jonathan Rosen (Picador, $14). The two novels are strikingly different: One deals with confronting a marriage of long standing; the other is about getting married.… -
The Dream is Over (Dreamworks)
•According to reports in various newspapers last week, NBC-Universal is contemplating acquiring DreamWorks’ live-action feature-film division, or as it used to be called, their movie studio. Regardless of whether the acquisition is consummated, it reflects a sad truth: Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen’s dream of creating a modern… -
A Well Lit Place (Steve Wasserman and the LA Times Sunday Book Review)
•How does one create a literary community in Los Angeles? It is true that on any given night, there are readings, slams and events at bookstores, bars and auditoriums all over town. Yet rarely does this coalesce into a sense of community, a literary life in Los Angeles. Steve Wasserman,… -
"History Happens" (David Hare's "Stuff Happens")
•After the intermission, the lights start to dim. A lone woman is on stage. She waits for the audience to settle in. She is well dressed, well groomed. She begins: “For the Palestinians, there is no other context. We see everything in the context of Palestine.†In the June 26… -
Heart to Hart
•A few weeks ago, the Geffen Playhouse showcased a memorable special event: “Here’s to Life,†Kitty Carlisle Hart’s cabaret-style one-woman show, accompanied by her musical director, David Lewis. Hart, 94, performed for a little over an hour, reminiscing and singing songs from some of her late friends such as Jerome… -
"Old Lessons Never Die" (Abby Mann's "Judgment" in Long Beach) 6-17-05
•If, as the bard wrote, "All the world's a stage," then let me direct you to a current production that, though seeming of another time, and another era, and based on a film more than 40 years old, offers enduring truths that seem particularly relevant to current events. "Judgment At… -
Agents of Charity (Jewish Family Service Gala honoring Kurtzman, Lonner, Kurtzman)
•As I write this The Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Los Angeles’ annual gala to be held on June 1, 2005 is a few days away. The honorees are CAA agent Rick Kurtzman; his brother, Fox business affairs executive Howard Kurtzman; and their brother-in-law, William Morris Agent David Lonner (married… -
Tommywood: "Light of Day" (Robert Weingarten at the Weisman Museum)
•As I drove toward Malibu the other day, Santa Monica Bay was anything but uniform, a shifting collage of textures and hues of blue. As the sun glinted off the water, I wondered: How does one describe the special quality of Santa Monica light? How do you explain it? How… -
Tommywood: "Raymond's End" (or Phil Rosenthal: Deli Lama) 5-06-05
•Phil Rosenthal, the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond,†which will end its nine-year run on CBS on May 16, and I are fressing at Barney Greengrass in Beverly Hills high atop Barney’s Department Store. It’s not that eating sable is the way I mourn (how is it that a fish…