Theater: In 2002, Chicago director Mary Zimmermann won a Tony Award for her adaptation of Ovid’s Greek myths, Metamorphoses, set in a swimming pool. Dreyfoos School of the Arts theater instructor Bruce Linser now wades into the play -- sorry, without the pool -- with an expanded cast size, which becomes a movement ensemble, albeit on dry land. Linser is putting his emphasis on … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 24-26
Film: With meticulous attention to period details and an engrossing history-based story that humanizes the struggle of a British king like no movie before it, The King’s Speech is great, albeit old-fashioned, filmmaking. Colin Firth stars as Bertie, a/k/a Prince Albert (Colin Firth), who unexpectedly becomes King George VI as World War II looms, due to his older brother’s … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 17-19
Film: There have been plenty of fact-based boxing movies and most get trapped on the ropes with sports clichés. But David O. Russell’s The Fighter is as much about “Irish” Micky Ward’s wildly dysfunctional family as it is about the fight game. Mark Wahlberg plays Ward well enough and it certainly isn’t his fault that he is outclassed by the brilliant Christian Bale as his … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 5-7
Film: Among the many atrocities attributable to the Nazis is the masterful way they churned out propaganda films during World War II. A new inside look at their disinformation machine is found in A Film Unfinished, a documentary by Yael Hersonski that sifts through existing footage of the Third Reich’s depiction of the Jewish ghetto, contrasting the well-off and the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 2-5
Film: There is an alternative to the vampires and werewolves of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and the sci-fi fantasy of The Last Airbender. It’s I Am Love, a sensuous film from debuting Italian director Luca Guadagnino with a starring performance by Oscar winner Tilda Swinton that is her best work yet on celluloid. She plays the Russian-born wife of a Milanese businessman who has … [Read more...]