 Ironically, also opening this weekend in limited release is Party Monster, starring real-life former child star Macaulay Culkin, who is garnering mixed notices. "It is a fearless performance," remarks Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times also has praise for Culkin, who has not appeared in a film since 1994's Richie Rich. "He succeeds as an adult actor in completely unexpected ways," Thomas writes. But Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News comments: "His performance in Party Monster is so embarrassing one doesn't know where to look. (Well, perhaps at the exit.)" And Joanne Kaufman concludes in the Wall Street Journal: "His every line reading recalls a second-rate leading man touring the provinces in a third-rate drawing-room comedy." Directly between those judgments is A.O. Scott in the New York Times, who writes: "His performance is earnest and brave, but also mannered when it should be unselfconscious, and awkward when grace is called for." |
