Film: The vote totals for the Academy Awards are never released, but it is safe to say that Michael Haneke’s Amour from Austria won the foreign language film category by a landslide, nominated as it was for best picture as well. And the movie is now out in area theaters, a rare opportunity to see the winner on a big screen. It is a tough film to sit through, especially for … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 27-30
The story could easily be a crude Fox sitcom or a schmaltzy reality series: An Israeli newborn and a Palestinian newborn are switched during a bomb scare in Haifa, Israel, a fact that neither discovers until their 18th birthdays. Instead, in The Other Son, this programmatic, easily exploitable story is played with tender care, cultural awareness and fabled resonance by … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 25-26
Still in Olympics withdrawal? Googling “Sochi, Russia” to think idly about your coverage-watching plans for the winter of 2014? The folks at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre understand. Friday night, the center opened an exhibit of hot-off-the-presses pictures from the just-concluded games by Adam Stoltman, a center instructor and professional photographer who’s covered no … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 13-15
Theater: As its name implies, Palm Beach Dramaworks usually sticks to plays of dramatic substance, but the company goes lighter in the summertime, usually with a musical. This season it is at least continuing its pre-occupation with classics by reviving The Fantasticks, that off-Broadway Energizer Bunny, which ran for 42 years originally, with its simple, allegorical tale of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 22-24
Music: It’s not too early to get into the holiday spirit for Independence Day. This Sunday, the Klezmer Company Orchestra at Florida Atlantic University mounts a concert of American music (mostly) under the baton of its leader, Aaron Kula. The concert also serves as an advertisement for the Spirit Of America Collection at FAU’s Wimberly Library, which contains 13,000 books, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 16-21
Art: This coming week, the Norton Museum of Art, which just opened a retrospective of the work of artist Edward Gorey, new photography curator Tim Wride offers more than 75 images devoted to the crowds and places of popular music. Clubs, Joints and Honky-Tonks brings together work by eminent lens artists such as Jeff Dunas, Lynn Goldsmith, Henry Horenstein, and even the quirky … [Read more...]
Hap’s fearless Tony picks: ‘Other Desert Cities,’ ‘Newsies’ will win
There seems to be no clear favorite for most of the categories in this year’s 66th annual Tony Awards, with winners expected all over the map. So tune in this Sunday at 8 p.m. on the CBS network to see my unscientific projections and out-and-out guesses proven wrong: Play: Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz Musical: Newsies, book by Harvey Fierstein Book of a Musical: … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 24-25
Film: American remakes of foreign films rarely improve on the original version, but that is exactly the feat that director David Fincher has pulled off with his take on Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There were reasons to worry about what the maker of Fight Club and Se7en would do to this dark, dense cold case mystery, but he has been extremely faithful to the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 9-11
Art: This coming Tuesday, the Boca Raton Museum of Art offers a view of American painting when it brings in 36 works from the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. These are pictures by some of the most celebrated American artists – Robert Henri, Andy Warhol, George Bellows, Thomas Eakins, among others – but it’s still true that many of their names and works … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 11-13
Theater: The numbers 11-11-11 have been drummed into us for most of the past year by Palm Beach Dramaworks, and now it is here -- the day the company unveils its substantially renovated new digs at Clematis and Narcissus in downtown West Palm Beach. The auditorium of the former Cuillo Centre for the Arts has been leveled and rebuilt, removing the stadium seating that so many … [Read more...]