Mike Cahill and Brit Marling make science-fiction films that don’t feel at all removed from present day — or should we say prescient day. Another Earth, their 2011 debut, posited the discovery of another Earth-like planet, and its tortured protagonist enters a contest to fly their on a civilian spacecraft, in a project spearheaded by a millionaire entrepreneur. Two years … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2014
23rd PB Chamber Fest wraps with fine Mendelssohn
For some reason, the string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn don’t have the currency on our chamber music stages that their quality deserves. But all six of them, as well as the separate pieces for string quartet, are marvelous works, and it was with one of these pieces that the 23rd iteration of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival wrapped up last weekend. It’s also worth … [Read more...]
Onslow, Stephenson stand out in PBCMF Concert 3
If the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival musicians went looking for a trove of unfamiliar but worthwhile music they could draw on year after year, they could do worse than the works of Georges (or George) Onslow. Onslow (1784-1853), the French offspring of an English lord’s wayward younger son, was the only substantial French composer of chamber music in his day, writing no … [Read more...]
Bland, predictable ‘And So It Goes’ aims for safe audiences
You can tell a lot from a movie by its opening shot. Rob Reiner’s new film, And So It Goes, opens with a crane shot delicately gliding over a landscape of absolute tranquility. We’re in a verdant seaside town in Connecticut, where the skies are always clear, there’s never any traffic, and the residences and businesses are storybook-quaint. These images — which scream … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: A radiant ‘Most Happy Fella’; provocative ‘The Whale’
Fifty-eight years ago, having already achieved success in Hollywood and on Broadway, composer-lyricist Frank Loesser immersed himself in a passion project, a quasi-operatic musical about an unlikely romance between an aged, immigrant grape farmer and a lovelorn young waitress. Its heart-on-its-sleeve emotionality and soaring arias were hardly what “the tired businessman” — the … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Legally Blonde’ bubbly at LW Playhouse
By Dale King Summer theater offerings are often a mixed bag, with top-notch productions generally saved for the return of Florida’s seasonal visitors. Not so with Lake Worth Playhouse. The play selectors there have chosen a delightful and surprisingly entertaining show, Legally Blonde, the Musical, which plays through July 27 at its downtown venue. Don’t go running like … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 18-20
Theater: The second shoe of Palm Beach Dramaworks’ summer concert series drops this weekend with The Most Happy Fella, Frank Loesser’s quasi-operative romantic musical about a middle-aged Italian vineyard owner who falls for a San Francisco waitress. Loesser authorized the two-keyboard arrangements that the concert will employ, for a score that includes such arias as “My Heart … [Read more...]
Encore: ‘Gabrielle’ a touching coming-of-age story
Editor’s note: This review ran originally on April 18, when the movie had an exclusive engagement in Miami. It premieres today at the Living Room Theaters on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, so we’d thought we’d run it again: I challenge you to find even one false note in director Louise Archambault’s Gabrielle, a sweet but unsentimental drama selected … [Read more...]
Appreciation: Elaine Stritch (1925-2014)
Outspoken and ascerbic, with a singing voice that was commanding yet gravelly, Elaine Stritch, 89, had a show business career that spanned seven decades. Alcoholic and diabetic, a lethal combination, she came close to death on several occasions, but died on Thursday out of the spotlight in her home state of Michigan, where she went for a retirement that few who knew her … [Read more...]
Two rarities charm in second week of PB Chamber Festival
They buried Ernst von Dohnányi in Tallahassee back in 1960, and for some time afterward, it seemed like his compositions went with him. But the great Hungarian pianist, estimable composer and Florida State University professor is enjoying more attention these days from performers. His neo-Brahmsian aesthetic was out of fashion until very recently, but audiences enjoying the … [Read more...]