Now that we have seen the year-end crop of award-worthy movies, it is clear than 2013 was rich in quality films. Family dysfunction, struggles for survival and looks back at our history are among the themes in this highly subjective selection of the best. 1. Nebraska — Alexander Payne’s signature territory of pain-laced comedy about deeply flawed, but recognizable characters … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 28-29
Art: No matter what its other attractions, the basic fact of the state of Florida is the water: Most of it is a sandbar in the sea, so it’s only fitting that so many artists of the state have turned or aqueous reality for inspiration. At the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County’s art gallery in its converted movie theater on Lake Street in Lake Worth, The Deep and the Shallow … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 13-15
Art: Was there any artist so indelibly associated with the late 1960s as Peter Max? The Art Students League-trained painter’s bright colors and quirky figures did as much to define the look of the age as hippiedom did. Max has continued working since those high-profile days, and has recently been painting portraits of singer Taylor Swift, which will be on sale Saturday when the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 7-8
Theater: With the comic strip musical Annie, director Mark Martino does not pull off the sort of new look reconceiving that he did with The Music Man at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre a couple of seasons ago, but he renders the show with plenty of heart and pizzazz. He doubles as the musical’s choreographer and stops the show twice with a raucous, bump-and-grind Easy Street and a … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 16-17
Film: By a quirk of release patterns, you can now see two recent films starring Naomi Watts on area theater screens. The two roles she plays in Diana and Sunlight Jr. are a real display of her acting range, portraying two vastly different women separated by an ocean and by the gulf of their financial circumstances. Diana is, of course, about Princess Diana, and her love affair … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 14-15
Film: David Gordon Green came on the cinema scene with such methodical, observant art films as George Washington, Undertow and Snow Angels. Lately, though, he has made broad, raucous comedies like Pineapple Express and Your Highness. He now returns to his earlier mode with Prince Avalanche, the saga of two men who paint traffic lines on remote country roads. The older guy (Paul … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 12-14
Theater: The idea of a concert reading of a musical sounds like it would be a very static event, but Palm Beach Dramaworks shows us that doe not have to be the case. Thanks to director Clive Cholerton, late of the late Caldwell Theatre Company, the concert of 1965’s tribute to idealism, Man of La Mancha, is extremely moving, both physically and emotionally. The show, with a … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 3-5
Art: See the culmination of years of study in the art work of four Masters of Fine Art students in Thesis Exhibition 2013 at the Schmidt Center Gallery at Florida Atlantic University. The exhibition, which runs through May 24, showcases the large, charcoal drawings of Jill Lavetsky, the abstract paintings and drawings of Eduardo Rosas and the functional pottery of Alexandra … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 29-31
Film: British director Michael Apted has made such commercial movies as Coal Miner’s Daughter and the 1999 James Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough. But by far his more significant project has been the Up series, a documentary visit with a dozen or so British subjects every seven years for the past 49 years, to track their lives and learn how they have overcome or fallen … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 23-26
(Editor’s note: The posting of this entry was delayed by technical difficulties.) Art: Boynton Beach settings have been transformed into vibrant paintings by the Palm Beach County Plein-Air meet-up group. The group’s work can be viewed in the Breeze into Boynton Beach: Plein-Air Exhibit on display on the second floor of the Boynton Beach City Library, 208 S. Seacrest Blvd. … [Read more...]