Film: It is not exactly Martin Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio, or even the long-term collaboration between Lawrence Kasdan and Kevin Kline, but emerging filmmaker Drake Doremus has made a second film with his muse, Felicity Jones. He follows up Like Crazy from a few years ago with the more accomplished Breathe In, the tale of an upstate New York family whose lives are disrupted by … [Read more...]
‘Better Living’ wallows in vulgarity, cliché
The only likable character in Better Living Through Chemistry shows up in two scenes, late in the movie. His name is Jack, and his role in the film doesn’t really matter. Suffice it to say that he coasts on the warmth, depth and intelligence of the actor playing him, Ray Liotta, and when he leaves the screen, it’s all the more apparent that the rest of these 92 minutes have … [Read more...]
Palestinian actors in ‘Omar’ living the Oscar dream
This evening, Adam Bakri and Leem Lubany will be attending the 86th annual Academy Awards ceremony, a dream come true for two fledgling actors from Palestine. A week earlier, they were in South Florida, on the promotion trail for Omar, the movie they star in, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. “I used to stay up to 7 a.m. until the final awards were given out,” recalls … [Read more...]
Sundays: Living the illustrated life
By Myles Ludwig Amid gods and grotesque wonders I meandered in an alternate universe. The atmosphere vibrated like a plucked string on a cosmic harp playing the music of the spheres. Creatures escaped from a child’s nightmare — lurid monsters with no discernible reference, deformed horrors, superbeings with powers defying rational explanation — surrounded me. Weird tales … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 26-28
Film: James Cromwell, a perpetual supporting player, gets the lead role in an impressive independent film called Still Mine, about a Canadian farmer battling to keep his farm afloat just as his wife of 61 years (Geneviève Bujold) begins drifting into dementia. A capable carpenter, he decides to downsize to a new home he will build himself, but that is how he runs into the brick … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 8-10
Theater: Although it won the 2002 Best Musical Tony Award, the stage version of Thoroughly Modern Millie is not a very sturdy show. Fortunately, no one told the cast at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, headed by a young dynamo named Laurie Veldheer, who has a belter’s lungs and a snappy way with a tap dance. She plays the ambitious girl from the Midwest who arrives in New York in … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 14-16
Art: Here’s something unusual and rather precious, which if you think about it is an ideal sort of something for the Christmas season. Britain-based artists Davy and Kristin McGuire spent four months in 2009 creating what can only be described as a multimedia pop-up book. The Icebook tells the story of a princess who lures a boy into the forest so he can warm her heart of ice; … [Read more...]