It is perhaps becoming a cliché to say that the latest performance by Ryan Gosling is a revelation, because he’s already had at least two revelatory performances – in Half Nelson and Blue Valentine – in his relatively short tenure as a leading man. How many times can somebody, uh, revelate over such a brief career? But it seems like the more we’re exposed to Gosling, the more … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2011
Dramaworks gets $2 million donation; PB Opera cancels all Monday shows
WEST PALM BEACH -- A retired Washington, D.C., power couple has donated $2 million to Palm Beach Dramaworks, the largest contribution in the history of the theater company. The donation by Donald and Ann Brown of Palm Beach Gardens will bring with it the renaming of the former Cuillo Theatre in West Palm Beach as the Donald and Ann Brown Theatre, the company said this morning. … [Read more...]
Return To Forever, Dweezil Zappa make a Boca Saturday even hotter
Keyboardist Chick Corea occupies the rare air of a jazz superstar who can do whatever he wants. Some of his recent whims included a 2008 reunion tour by the popular fusion quartet version from among his various Return To Forever lineups from 1972-1977, and the recent Forever CD by three of that reunion’s principals (himself, original RTF bassist Stanley Clarke and longtime … [Read more...]
‘Contagion’ and ‘Warrior’: Strong films of viral, and human, conflict
For those who have been stressing lately over deadly earthquakes and hurricanes, worry instead about tiny viruses that travel with unexpected speed around the globe transported by a cough or a handshake. Oh, to have the surgical mask concession at movie theaters showing Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, a star-packed exercise in medical paranoia told with a muted style instead of … [Read more...]
Romanenko provides a marvelous afternoon of Bach
The six cello suites of J.S. Bach are monumental in every significant way, which means that Saturday afternoon’s traversal of all six in a Lake Worth church was itself a monument for local audiences. And Alexei Romanenko, who brought these great works to a decent-sized pre-season crowd at Calvary United Methodist, showed that he has all the skill, taste and imagination he … [Read more...]
A critic remembers the day the world changed
Fittingly, when the Saudi terrorists were flying planes into the World Trade Center 10 years ago, I was at the movies. Yes, even at 8:46 a.m., the time the North Tower was hit, I was sitting in a theater with a pad in my hand, for I was at the Toronto International Film Festival that fateful day. I was watching a press screening of Mira Nair’s festive Monsoon Wedding, which … [Read more...]
The View From Home 30: New releases and notable screenings, Sept. 13-30
I understand that Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs has been remade, with the Rod Lurie-directed film set to bloody cinema screens everywhere Sept. 16. It was only inevitable that a film whose shocking, graphic depictions of violence and sexuality, which were well ahead of their time in mainstream cinemas in 1971, would be mined and possibly exploited by a generation of moviemakers … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 9-11
Film: Emerging Cinemas at Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park has a treat for all children of the ’60s (which I proudly proclaim includes me). It is the hallucinogenic documentary Magic Trip, a celebration of author/guru Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and his infamous 1964 cross-country ramble in a wildly painted school bus, with his posse of apostles aboard. Too young to … [Read more...]
Artist Neuenschwander’s work draws power from the viewer
There’s one element to Rivane Neuenschwander’s artwork, now at the Miami Art Museum until Oct. 16, that probably won’t travel back with it to her native Brazil, yet it is an integral part of the exhibit: You. Yes, you bring more to Neuenschwander’s mid-career survey, A Day Like Any Other, than you could possibly imagine. In fact, without you, more than half of this exhibit … [Read more...]
‘So My Grandmother Died,’ and so did the linear play
More than most other South Florida theater companies, Miami’s Mad Cat has been able to attract a young audience, pulling them away from pop culture and electronic media for a couple of hours. How? With plays like artistic director Paul Tei’s So My Grandmother Died, Blah Blah Blah, a messy grab bag of pop culture and Internet references with only tangential interest in a … [Read more...]