Editor’s note: Here is a late review from a concert last month. Technical difficulties prevented it from being posted until now. By nature of the brief, intimate hold it has on the audience, a string quartet is usually less experimental than a large ensemble, needing to make sure each piece counts and has maximum impact. In its appearance March 14 in the Duncan Theatre’s … [Read more...]
Plummer a standout, McGregor less so, in moving ‘Beginners’
There’s nothing funny about an old man, struck with terminal cancer, who only finds the courage to admit that he’s gay after the death of his wife of 44 years. No, this is not material rife with comic potential, but sometimes laughter is the only way to cope. In his nuanced second feature Beginners, writer-director Mike Mills recognizes this, collecting a small ensemble of … [Read more...]
Less isn’t more as Norton asks ‘Now WHAT?’
Two strangers in a museum find themselves sharing the same opinion about that thing facing them. They call it “thing” because they don't know what it is. And the brave one's loud comment (“What the heck is this?”) is the shy one's relief. Such a flow of communication might be common at the Now WHAT? show, which opened recently at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach in an … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 18-22
Art: Painters, sculptors, photographers and other artists in this state look forward every year to the All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition, and next week, the 59th edition of this oldest such Florida contest opens at the Boca Raton Museum of Art for a run of seven weeks. This year, almost 1,400 entries were received for the contest, which was judged by New York-based … [Read more...]
Personal angle lifts moving ‘Messenger’
It continues to appear as if The Hurt Locker is 2009’s sleeper candidate for top awards stardom, and I couldn’t be happier for director Kathryn Bigelow – not just because she made such a great, deserving film but because she helped reorient the war drama into more intensely personal, less ideologically pandering terrain (Avatar notwithstanding). Just a couple of years ago, … [Read more...]
Hap’s top 10 films of 2009
As a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association as well as the Florida Film Critics Circle, I have spent the last few weeks watching new movies about to be released that the studios made available either at special screenings or -- even better -- on “For Your Consideration” DVDs that arrived at my home almost daily from FedEx or UPS. Why? Because we vote on year-end … [Read more...]