Film: Whether you played with Lego building blocks as a kid or were first introduced to them by the delightful animated Lego Movie last year, you are likely to enjoy A LEGO Brickumentary, the even more unlikely non-fiction film about the Danish-born creation that has grown into the second largest toy company in the world. Yes, it’s everything you always wanted to know about … [Read more...]
‘Five Star Life’: On the border of freedom and loneliness
Irene, the career woman at the center of A Five Star Life, spends most of her days in laps of luxury around the world. As an inspector of five-star resorts, we see Irene (Margherita Buy) jetting to Paris and Gstaad and Berlin and Morocco and China, traveling incognito and, like a spy, inventing professions when fellow guests inquire about her job. The actual answer to that … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks, July 12-13
Theater: What does a theater company do when it loses its prime asset? To find out, head to Jupiter’s Carlin Park this weekend and next to see a Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing, dedicated to its co-founder, longtime artistic director and leading man, Kevin Crawford, who died suddenly at the end of 2013. Crawford had edited the text in … [Read more...]
Hap’s picks: Top 10 stage shows of 2013
1. Lungs (The Theater at Arts Garage) — British playwright Duncan Macmillan specified no theatrical artifice — no set, no lighting effects, no distracting costumes — in this two-character dialogue and occasional rant about the advisability of bringing a baby into this world. That left Cliff Burgess and Betsy Graver alone onstage with only their acting skills and wits to keep us … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 1-2
Art: This is the last weekend to see Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Landau is a philanthropist and a preeminent collector of postwar art in the United States and the exhibition on display at the Norton is a selection of the more than 300 paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper that Landau gifted to the … [Read more...]
The View From Home 28: New releases and notable screenings, July 12-31
For years, I assumed I would simply never have the opportunity to see Skidoo, Otto Preminger’s critically and commercially maligned acid trip from 1968. The film was never even released on VHS and was therefore reduced to a distribution cycle as small as its perceived audience; you could see it at the occasional 35mm revival in New York or Los Angeles, or on a … [Read more...]
Broadway Postcard No. 7: Boca team backs sharp ‘Born Yesterday’
This afternoon I got to see the handiwork of those three young chargers from Boca Raton -- Philip Morgaman (27 years old), Frankie J. Grande (28) and Brian Kapetanis (28) -- the lead producers of the new revival of Born Yesterday that opened last Sunday night to very favorable reviews. That was the opening I missed taking a three-hop flight to New York by way of Detroit. It … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 10-12
Music: The Palm Beach Opera opens its 49th season tonight with Nabucco, the opera that made Giuseppe Verdi’s career back in 1842. It’s the first mounting of this opera by the company in 25 years, and they’ve secured a host of singers with experience at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Mark Rucker and Sebastian Catana trade places as Nabucco himself, and Paoletta Marrocu and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 21-23
Art: West Palm Beach’s newest art gallery debuts tonight as Guy Chaifetz transforms part of the building that houses The Edit Centre, his video editing and duplication service, into Ross Gallery of Art. Painting, sculptures and photographs will be featured by recognized artists such as Dennis Aufiery, Devlynne Dawn, Elodia Fanjul, TD Gillispie, Gail Gold, Jackie Gorissen, … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 5: ‘Sondheim’ and ‘A Behanding’
It is the rare New York season that does not see a production of an existing Stephen Sondheim musical, but the brilliant composer-lyricist has not had a new show on Broadway since 1994’s Passion. So those of us who remain in awe of his abilities to push the boundaries of the musical theater have had to content ourselves with revivals, such as the current A Little Night Music … [Read more...]