Before a painted scrim reminiscent of the 1975 Peter Weir film Picnic at Hanging Rock, Florida Classical Ballet Theatre opened its 11th anniversary season Saturday with a beautifully performed rendition of Michel Fokine’s 1909 ballet Les Sylphides. As part of a three-ballet program selected to evoke mood rather than tell stories, this classical ballet, which is given credit … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2011
The View From Home 31: New releases and notable screenings, Oct. 11-Nov. 1
Here’s the long and short of it: Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’ documentary The Shock Doctrine (Zeitgeist, $26.99) attempts to explain, in 80 minutes, what journalist Naomi Klein proposed in her 600-page best-seller of the same name: that the neoliberal, free-market capitalistic ideas of Milton Friedman are the root cause of our economic perils yesterday, today and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 14-18
Art: Starting Tuesday, two important shows at local art museums open, shows that will be running into the early weeks of January. The Flagler Museum on Palm Beach offers the story of how Henry Flagler’s railroad made it all the way to Key West a century ago. Over a seven-year period beginning in 1905, construction workers braved five hurricanes and mosquito-borne disease to … [Read more...]
‘That Used to Be Us’ an urgent call to recover American primacy
Three years ago, Thomas L. Friedman sounded alarm bells about global warming in his best-selling book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, but predicted that America would wake up before it was too late. Now Friedman and co-author Michael Mandelbaum in their new book, That Used To Be Us, say they are frustrated, but still optimistic, about a range of issues, including global warming, … [Read more...]
Photo Salon show offers fresh take on Florida views
The Photo Salon is a group of professional, semi-professional and entirely amateur photographers who meet biweekly at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach. Together they’ve mounted an exhibit of their work that showcases their different photographic styles, as well as their unique perspectives of Florida. The exhibit, titled Florida In and Out of View can be seen at the … [Read more...]
French pianist Vincent original, impressive in Delray recital
Playing the music of Franz Liszt, who was born in this month 200 years ago, usually gives a pianist free rein to indulge his inner keyboard wild man. And yet Guillaume Vincent, who was born only 20 years ago Sunday, brought to his reading of Liszt’s epic B minor Sonata qualities such as introspection, deliberateness and mystery, casting this showpiece in an unfamiliar but … [Read more...]
The View From Home special report: The cinema of Jean-Claude Brisseau
I’ve never been to France, but when I visit, I’d prefer to avoid the parts of the country that seem to fascinate Jean-Claude Brisseau. This underrated French director avoids the picturesque Paris of Woody Allen’s latest time-travel reverie, the tourist-chic France of living postcards, fashionable bistros and perpetually beautiful women. Nor is it the snooty enclave of the New … [Read more...]
The 2011-12 season in Miami-Broward art: A widely varied menu
The visual arts season in Broward and Miami-Dade counties offers its usual host of dichotomies, plus some surprises. There are trippy, hallucinatory drawings and religious icons; Baroque paintings and contemporary female-centric photographs; sculptures both austere and intricate and installations inspired by the American palate, vinyl records, Beethoven and the Beats. If we … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 7-9
Theater: Little Shop of Horrors, Roger Corman’s 1960 low-budget sci-fi flick about a man-eating plant and a nebbish florist’s love for an abused Skid Row tootsie, must have seemed odd source material for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (the songwriting team behind such Disney animated features as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast), but they turned it into a … [Read more...]
‘The Ides of March’: Political treachery, but without togas
During the Bush administration, people would sigh and say they wished Martin Sheen’s character on The West Wing were really the president. Expect a similar response to the new political intrigue drama, The Ides of March, with its iconic liberal candidate played with cunning charm by George Clooney. Clooney not only stars as Democratic Gov. Mike Morris, with perfectly polished … [Read more...]