New on DVD:
Public Speaking
Barbed-wire raconteur and bon mot factory Fran Lebowitz has many theories about the proper methods of creating and appreciating art, and few of them would be likely to be found in the frequently touchy-feely literature on the subject: “Sitting in bars, smoking cigarettes, that’s the history of art.” To Lebowitz, holding forth in Martin Scorsese’s amber-lit, relaxed bar-stool hangout of a documentary on her, the craft of making art is a social phenomenon – one has to be in the thick of things to accurately mine them for one’s art. Fortunately for viewers, Lebowitz is no tortured soul of the Barton Fink variety, even if she is just about as famously blocked…
Public Speaking is now available on DVD from HBO. You can read the full review at filmcritic.com.
