True Story is, among other things, a movie about addiction, but not to the usual addictive suspects — booze, drugs, sex, gambling. It’s about an addiction to the truth, or moreover the perception of truth, and the obsessions and compulsions that drive it. It’s the sort of addiction to which any dedicated newshound can relate, the kind that results in sleepless nights, 80-hour … [Read more...]
‘Unbroken’ tells riveting tale of airman’s survival
For weeks, Unbroken has been perched at or near the top of the nonfiction best-seller list, and for good reason. The book tells the riveting story of a World War II airman who survived for 47 days in 1943 on a raft in the Pacific Ocean before Japanese soldiers captured him and held him in brutal conditions for the rest of the war. The airman, Louis Zamperini, was a … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 24-28
Music: Things might be a little soggy out there thanks to Tropical Storm Bonnie, but as of this writing, the Vans Warped Tour, 2010 edition, is set to hit the Cruzan Amphitheatre on Saturday for a day of bands and extreme sports. The skateboard company Vans, which launched this festival in 1995, welcomes 72 bands to this year’s tour, one of them being West Palm’s own Hey … [Read more...]
Harrowing tale of life behind bars remarkably even-handed
Wilbert Rideau was 19 when he impulsively decided to rob a bank in Lake Charles, La., so he could flee to a new life on the West Coast. The botched 1961 robbery ended with Rideau taking three hostages. In the ensuing chaos he fatally shot and stabbed a female bank teller. Rideau was black and the victim was white, and a seething mob nearly lynched him. He was quickly convicted … [Read more...]
Tale of cell line’s ‘mother’ astonishes
Before the publication of this book, few people other than scientists had ever heard of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman who died of cancer in 1951. Lacks was a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore when doctors, without her knowledge or consent, sliced cancerous tissue from her cervix for research purposes. To the astonishment of scientists, the cancer cells began … [Read more...]