Atlanta-born guitarist and vocalist Bobby Lee Rodgers (www.bobbyleerodgers.com) spent much of the past decade fronting The Codetalkers, a group he founded with former Aquarium Rescue Unit leader Col. Bruce Hampton. The band was a pop-rock vehicle for Rodgers’ quirky songwriting, playing and vocals, all of which showed only glimpses of his deep jazz background. But his recent … [Read more...]
For Adami, everything is allegory
They may look like comic book art, but there is a perturbing sadness to the world that Valerio Adami creates in his large-scale paintings, 23 of which are currently on view until Jan. 9 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in a retrospective exhibit that spans four decades of the Italian artist’s work. The exhibit is merely a glimpse into Adami’s vast oeuvre, which has been shaped … [Read more...]
‘Mack and Mabel’ at Broward Stage Door offers a lot to like
After first-rate productions of A Little Night Music and The Drowsy Chaperone, and now a very credible mounting of the problematic Mack and Mabel, we are going to have to stop being so surprised when the Broward Stage Door Theatre delivers satisfying entertainment. The formerly erratic company has been coming through with the goods more and more, giving us hope for such … [Read more...]
The View From Home 10: New releases on DVD
Terribly Happy (Oscilloscope Laboratories) Release date: July 13 Standard list price: $26.99 Following in the footsteps of Roger Vadim (…And God Created Woman), George Sluizier (The Vanishing) and Michael Haneke (Funny Games), Danish filmmaker Henrik Ruben Genz becomes the latest foreign-language director to remake his own movie in English with his latest picture, Terribly … [Read more...]
All-Florida show at Boca Museum rich and rewarding
I have never been a fan of having artists explain their work with their own words, but with a show as diverse as the 59th Annual All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition it might just prove useful. The competition, the oldest of its kind, gives new and established artists residing in the state a chance to expose their work. Of about 1,400 entries submitted this year, 92 … [Read more...]
‘Speech and Debate’: GableStage’s youth movement
Although he must have been absent in playwriting class the day they covered creating enticing titles, Stephen Karam demonstrates his skill with contemporary dialogue and the angst of today’s youth in the breezy, comic Speech and Debate. While more lightweight than GableStage’s usual fare, the production demonstrates the company’s continued interest in new talent -- … [Read more...]
Film Q & A: Nicole Holofcener and Catherine Keener, on collaborating
There’s Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. There’s Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. And on the female side, there’s Nicole Holofcener and Catherine Keener: Film directors and the actors with whom they frequently collaborate. Keener has been in all four of Holofcener’s films -- Walking and Talking (1996), Lovely and Amazing (2001), Friends with Money (2006) and her latest, Please … [Read more...]
William Kentridge, on looking, drawing and knowing
“Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting,” Willem DeKooning said of his fellow abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock. “He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.” In the same way, William Kentridge has revolutionized the practice of drawing. Using charcoal on paper, repeatedly erased and redrawn, as the vehicle for … [Read more...]
Guitarist Kreisberg sets first SoFla gigs in five years
New York City-born guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg first showed an interest in music at age 10 after he’d moved to Miami with his family. He would go on to study at the New World School of the Arts, appear in Guitar Player and Down Beat magazines while in his teens, and earn a scholarship to the University of Miami, graduating from its esteemed music program. He then played in … [Read more...]
‘White People’ examines dispiriting history of racial constructs
The spectacle of Americans choking with rage at Tea Parties, or tossing around racist epithets at Sarah Palin rallies, has our European friends worried. Recently, French journalist Jean-Sebastien Stehli, writing in Le Figaro, bemoaned the “climate of violence” in American politics, which he identifies as white fear and resentment at the rise of a black president. Nativist … [Read more...]