arts, style, travel

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Frank Rich's best column in some time is about Jessica Lynch and changing media treatments of her story, including tonight's TV movie Saving Jessica Lynch:

The movie begins with the inevitable disclaimer that "some characters, scenes and events in whole or in part have been created for dramatic purposes." Even so, given the facts as we know them to date, it is startling in its relative accuracy--more than earlier reportage by The Washington Post (which attributed its initial Rambo version to "U.S. officials") and The New York Times (whose reporter Jayson Blair fictionalized some of the paper's Lynch coverage).

The debate over Shakespeare's Falstaff, soon to be played at Lincoln Center by Kevin Kline.

One scholar, speaking for many, has riposted that Mr. Bloom has abstracted Falstaff from the web of relationships in the plays, inflated him to monstrous parade-float dimensions, "like the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man in `Ghostbusters,' " striding through the skyscrapers.

(Why do you think the scholar is unnamed? Is there a Scholar Protection Program for people who mock Harold Bloom?)

A good summary of why there are bad DVD editions of good movies. Also, some examples and counterexamples. I'm sad to hear Yi Yi turned out badly.

Elizabeth Wurtzel doesn't like the movie version of Prozac Nation, her first memoir.

New York City tourism: More families, fewer foreigners. Also Miffy the cartoon bunny.