Film: Within every great comic is a dramatic actor yearning to break through. Or that’s how the show business cliché goes. But it is true about Lily Tomlin, who gives a remarkable, tough, smart-mouthed performance in a brief – only 78 minutes – low-budget film called simply Grandma. She is Elle, a lesbian poet whose granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner), arrives on her Van Nuys … [Read more...]
Few surprises at 86th Oscars show
There were few surprises or upsets at Sunday evening’s 86th annual Academy Awards ceremony, which is to say that my posted predictions were pretty accurate. I called 20 of the 24 categories correctly and, if you are willing to ignore the two short film categories, it was 20 of 22. With the pool bets I made, I could afford to chip in for the pizzas that host Ellen DeGeneres … [Read more...]
Pianist Licad to offer powerful program of rarities
There isn’t much precedent, except maybe on a college seminar evening somewhere, for the kind of program the Filipina pianist Cecile Licad is playing Sunday afternoon at Festival Miami. Here’s the lineup: Pieces by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Edward MacDowell, William Mason, Leo Ornstein, Ferruccio Busoni and Cecile Chaminade. No Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms or Chopin in sight. … [Read more...]
Sunday Comment: Why I’ll be following the Sandusky trial
As a longtime music journalist who needed extra income in 2006, I turned toward another passion -- sports. Since then, I’ve covered high school football, basketball, volleyball, tennis and soccer – as well as music -- for area print and online outlets. Yet most of my sports writing has involved stories about youth athletes of high school age or younger. Since many of my … [Read more...]
Sunday Comment: Palm Beach film fest still figuring itself out at 17
As the 17th annual Palm Beach International Film Festival approaches, the countywide movie event seems now what it was when it started in 1996. It hovers perpetually on the verge of becoming worth our time and attention, but is has yet to get there. Sure, in the 16 previous festivals, there have been films worthy of this exalted showcase. Think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding … [Read more...]
Sunday Comment: Why we (Americans) can’t get enough of ‘Downton Abbey’
By Tom Tracy Last year, a parody film short appeared on YouTube offering a send-up of the hit TV period drama Downton Abbey, with mock scenes of the show, faux-interviews with the cast and writers, and a scene recalling the ironing of morning newspapers. The latter was a reference to a brief scene in the opening episode of Season One of Downton Abbey (apparently newspapers … [Read more...]
Violinist Fain shines in Prokofiev at Boca Symphonia
There is a kind of intense, high-energy sound that is ideal for the special lyricism of Sergei Prokofiev, and Tim Fain has it. The American violinist gave a riveting performance Sunday afternoon of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto (in G minor, Op. 63) as the Boca Raton Symphonia opened its seventh season at the Roberts Theater. Fain, 35, who’s been celebrated recently for … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks, Sept. 30-Oct. 2
Theater: What, you still haven’t seen Karen Stephens in the one-woman multiple-character tour de force Bridge & Tunnel? The show, built around the denizens of an urban poetry slam café, allows the West Palm Beach actress the opportunity to flex her performance muscles and demonstrate her chameleon-like abilities. The show brought her a Carbonell Award nomination earlier this … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 1-3
Film: I am no fan of vampire movies, particularly the Twilight series, with its two-dimensional, catatonic acting. But two years ago, a subdued, suspenseful Swedish film, Let the Right One In, put a new twist on the undead genre with its tale of a 12-year-old boy who is befriended by a seemingly young vampire who moves into his neighborhood. Now comes Matt Reeves’ (Cloverfield) … [Read more...]
Sunday’s ‘Messiah’ will be last for Masterworks Chorus founder
This Sunday afternoon, crowds will gather in force at the Royal Poinciana Chapel on Palm Beach, as they do every holiday season, for a singalong performance of the so-called Christmas portion of George Frideric Handel's Messiah. It will be the 32nd such performance since Jack W. Jones inaugurated the local tradition in 1978 at what is now Palm Beach Atlantic University, and … [Read more...]