Music: The instruments most musicians work with today are survivors or variations of the sonic armaments they had in other eras. Gone, for the most part, are the ophicleide, the serpent, the sarrusophone. Most of the viol family, with the exception of the double bass (and its modern derivative the bass guitar), also is gone, heard today only in specialist concerts. But then … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2011
The View From Home 25: New releases on DVD
Araya (Milestone) Release date: May 10 Standard list price: $29.95 Milestone Films releases many different kinds of movies, but if the distributor has a signature style, it’s the merger of documentary and fiction – depictions of real life colored, in one way or another, with the aesthetic control of fiction. I am Cuba, The Exiles, On the Bowery and In This World all fulfill … [Read more...]
Book review: Author’s quest to know lost dad revives tales of sadness
Almost a Family: A Memoir, by John Darnton; Knopf; 348 pp.; $27.95By Bill WilliamsJohn Darnton was 11 months old when his father, Barney Darnton, was killed during World War II while reporting on the war in the Pacific for The New York Times.Almost a Family is a meticulous reconstruction of the lives of the Darnton family – the author, his older … [Read more...]
Author’s quest to know lost dad revives tales of sadness
John Darnton was 11 months old when his father, Barney Darnton, was killed during World War II while reporting on the war in the Pacific for The New York Times. Almost a Family is a meticulous reconstruction of the lives of the Darnton family – the author, his older brother and their mom and dad. The book is, by turns, illuminating, gripping and sad. Growing up, the author … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 6-8
Morris Robinson as the Commendatorein Florida Grand Opera’s Don Giovanni.Music: This weekend, Florida Grand Opera is running more like a repertory company than its normal mode of one show at one time. Its productions of David DiChiera’s Cyrano and Mozart’s Don Giovanni are running tomorrow and Sunday afternoon, respectively, at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 6-8
Music: This weekend, Florida Grand Opera is running more like a repertory company than its normal mode of one show at one time. Its productions of David DiChiera’s Cyrano and Mozart’s Don Giovanni are running tomorrow and Sunday afternoon, respectively, at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in downtown Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center. Cyrano, based on the Edmond Rostand play about the … [Read more...]
Theater appreciation: The volatile Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents (1917-2011).By Hap ErsteinWhen two-time Tony Award-winning writer-director Arthur Laurents died on Thursday, the theater and film world lost one of its great creative talents. And one of its most difficult.He died at his home in New York at 93, after a short illness. There will undoubtedly be an outpouring of praise for Laurents, particularly for his two most … [Read more...]
Appreciation: Remembering the volatile Arthur Laurents
When two-time Tony Award-winning writer-director Arthur Laurents died on Thursday, the theater and film world lost one of its great creative talents. And one of its most difficult. He died at his home in New York at 93, after a short illness. There will undoubtedly be an outpouring of praise for Laurents, particularly for his two most acclaimed musicals, West Side Story and … [Read more...]
Film review: Charmless, shopworn ‘Ceremony’ deserves dustbin
Uma Thurman and Michael Anganaro in Ceremony. By John ThomasonI’m always taken aback when unequivocally bad movies like Ceremony somehow pass the same art-house muster as films by renowned artists.A snarky, misogynistic and intellectually vapid Indiewood feature, Ceremony belongs in Blockbuster’s direct-to-video dustbin, not sharing real estate with the … [Read more...]
Charmless, shopworn ‘Ceremony’ deserves dustbin
I’m always taken aback when unequivocally bad movies like Ceremony somehow pass the same art-house muster as films by renowned artists. A snarky, misogynistic and intellectually vapid Indiewood feature, Ceremony belongs in Blockbuster’s direct-to-video dustbin, not sharing real estate with the likes of Certified Copy and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. In his feature debut, … [Read more...]