For a short time in late 2004, the story was catnip to Kentucky media. Three students — and one college dropout — from Lexington’s Transylvania University attempted a rare-book heist that, to put it mildly, did not go as planned. To say much more about the results would do a disservice to the nervy suspense of Bart Layton’s American Animals, which dramatizes the young men’s … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2018
‘Mr. Parker’ a superb tale of love, loss and moving on
JeffandTerry. Acclaimed photographer Jeffrey McCabe and so-so novelist Terry Parker were inseparable companions for 30 years – and married for six of them. They were so close they were like one word, and fully expected to grow old together. But Jeff died seven months ago in a car crash, and 54-year-old Terry is still grieving over his loss. He relates this to … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 23-24
Film: So you’ve already seen Ocean’s 8 and you are still craving a good heist film? Check out American Animals, a fact-based tale of a quartet of college students who have seen too many movies and decide to pull off an impossible robbery, stealing a copy of Audubon’s Birds of America – valued at millions of dollars – from the library at Transylvania (Ky.) University. Although … [Read more...]
Stage Door offers touching ‘From Door to Door’
By Dale King It’s no secret that Broward Stage Door Theatre will vacate its current premises on West Sample Road in Margate and move to newer, more modern and technologically advanced digs at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center this fall. So, it’s a bit touching that the next-to-the-last production at Broward Stage – James Sherman’s From Door to Door – is very much a … [Read more...]
‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’: The lasting goodness of a gentle progressive
The television I enjoyed as a kid lurches from the requisite Sesame Street to the mindless distractions of G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Animaniacs, Ren & Stimpy and the green slime of many a Nickelodeon game show, with its slapstick schadenfreude. If there was any room for Fred Rogers’ earnest blend of puppet show and talk therapy, I have no memory of it. His iconic … [Read more...]
Nomadic Murals, at Boca Museum, find a home in our hearts
Picasso, Mirò, Dalí, Chagall, Raphael and Rubens experimented with it, but tapestry is still not the sexiest medium in the world of art. Given the right time, space and lighting, however, this ancient practice, once held in higher esteem than sculptures and paintings, blows away the most skeptical art fan. Trust me. I’m one of them. Unlike the ring you have been hinting at … [Read more...]
Turnbull carries off a tour de force in ‘Pink Unicorn’
What’s a mother to do? Big-haired, small-town Texas mom Trisha Lee is taken aback when her teenage daughter Jolene announces to her that from now on she should no longer be considered a girl but gender-neutral, so please call her “Jo(e)” and refer to her by the pronoun “they.” The semantics of gender politics is the least of Trisha’s problems, once her unconditional-love, … [Read more...]
‘I’m Gonna Pray’ serves up dark, compelling father-daughter strife
Is there a yearning more primal than for the approval of a parent? Well, if you happen to be in the theater, the approval of critics comes in a close second. Both are captured, pitfalls and all, in Halley Feiffer’s dark, probably autobiographical, disturbing tale of father-daughter struggles, I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, now in its area premiere at GableStage. … [Read more...]
A stellar evening with Shakespeare and Seraphic Fire
By Clare Shore (Editor's note: The publication of this review was delayed by technical difficulties.) To delight or not to delight? Surely the latter is out of the question, and as for the former, it’s exactly what Seraphic Fire did in its season-closing concert of music inspired by, or set to, the work of William Shakespeare. At the May 12 concert at All Saints … [Read more...]
Like the season, ‘Summer 1993’ is a golden treasure
For most films seeking a mass audience, the best we can hope for is that they leave some time for reflection amid the whizzes and bangs, the laugh lines and shock cuts. Catalan director Carla Simón’s Summer 1993 is all reflection, a childhood memory film as vividly realized as Carlos Saura’s Cria Cuervos!, but with a style and circumspection that are all Simón’s own. This … [Read more...]