The Wind Rises, the self-professed final film from Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), is as visually masterful as ever. It’s filmed in his preferred, largely hand-drawn and 2D style, with deep attention paid to the flickers of light and the accuracy of shadows, to the right amount of ash and flames swirling above an earthquake-stricken city and to the … [Read more...]
All-animated ‘virtual opera’ to premiere in Lake Worth
If getting an established opera off the production ground is difficult and enormously expensive, it’s even tougher when the work is brand-new. So what’s the aspiring Wagner of today to do? One answer, as Sabrina Peña Young will tell you, is to choose the early 21st-century default option and go online — to be Wagner 2.0, if you like. Peña Young, a bubbly, intensely energetic … [Read more...]
‘Wild’ a gripping story of self-discovery
Cheryl Strayed grabs the reader on the first page of this absorbing book when she describes an unfortunate incident during her 1995 trek along West Coast mountain ranges. Strayed had removed her hiking boots to rest when suddenly one of the boots slipped over the edge of a cliff. Realizing that the other boot was now worthless, she tossed it off the side of the mountain, … [Read more...]