Beaver coats, hooch, Roadsters, flappers, the Charleston, and hot jazz -- all these ingredients blended in the punch bowl that was the Roaring Twenties, the era in which F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the crown prince and princess of the fast set. The author had gained wealth, excitement

Catastrophe, Charming, Manic, Modernist literature, Opulent, The lost generation, Tragic

"I'm the new Berlin Wall. Try to tear me down." -- Hedwig An East German war bride looks after a young boy in a Kansas trailer park. She is an ex-prostitute who turns her young charge on to Barry Manilow. The story seems lifted from a tabloid, but these are actual childhood memories for one unusual

Angry, New american musical, Perverse, Pop, Tragic

After the crash of the French New Wave had subsided into an uncertain lull, critics complained that French cinema was dead. In reality, it was merely taking a rest. Enter Olivier Assayas, son of a respected pre-New Wave scriptwriter. Although schooled in literature and painting, Assayas maintaine

Dark, French new wave, Psychological, Self-reflection, Tragic

Jane Austen has been reincarnated in the personage of Kazuo Ishiguro. The great novelist of early-nineteenth-century English manners, who observed the moral inconsistencies of the nobility and argued for a form of social meritocracy, could not have hoped for a more loyal and perfect heir to her legac

Composed, Contemplative, Demure, Melancholy, Modernist literature, Tragic