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Within a few weeks, American moviegoers will be given the chance to wallow in the glitz, glamour, and guillotines of Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.” For now they will have to make do with a dowdier, more discreet queen, the one who has been reigning in England for more than half a century now, a monarch who shows every sign of hanging on to her crown and, thankfully, the head on which it sits. In all the decades of Elizabeth II’s painstakingly (and sometimes painfully) dutiful, conscientious, and, yes, tenacious reign, there has only really been one brief, bizarre period, of [...]
Reign Storm
September 29, 2006
The Queen; published originally in The New York Sun
Right at the beginning of this mad, maddening, provocative, and sometimes beautifully written book, “Nicole Kidman” (Alfred A. Knopf, 304 pages, $24.95), David Thomson admits that he “loves” Nicole Kidman, a confession that is both essential and superfluous. Skeptical as we all should be about long-distance psychoanalysis, Mr. Thomson’s book is more love letter than biography, both a meditation on obsession and a monument to it. He writes: There she is in profile, her right shoulder raised, her chin lowered … with just a flap of brown cloth covering her breasts and a considerable expanse of white skin … a [...]
Look but Don’t Touch
September 6, 2006
"Nicole Kidman" by David Thomson; published originally in The New York Sun