What do Jake Gyllenhall, David Oyelowo, Amy Adams and Jennifer Aniston have in common? They all turned in first-rate performances last year -- in Nightcrawler, Selma, Big Eyes and Cake, respectively -- but failed to earn Oscar nominations for their efforts when the career-boosting list of potential Academy Award winners was released this morning. 2014 saw a crowded field of … [Read more...]
‘Bad Words’ nasty rather than funny
Usually, the mere presence of the great Jason Bateman in an otherwise calamitous comedy — The Ex, The Switch, The Change-Up, Identity Thief, I could sadly go on and on — makes the failed jokes go down a little easier. He’s coasted through one clunker after another because of his inherent likeability; it was the one thing, in many of those films, that made them worth watching. … [Read more...]
Music roundup: SoFla Symphony, Delray SQ, PBAU Artists series
A very fine young cellist made an eloquent case Nov. 16 for an undeservedly neglected American concerto in the opening program of the South Florida Symphony’s concert season at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach. Clancy Newman, a first-prize Naumburg Foundation Competition winner and a graduate of Columbia and the Juilliard School, tackled the Cello Concerto of Samuel Barber … [Read more...]
Theater roundup, Part 2: ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ ‘The ‘D’ Word’
As classical acting training programs know, if you learn to speak the lines of Shakespeare, you can then perform the words of contemporary playwrights. Alas, it does not work in reverse, as Outré Theatre Company, a relatively new troupe that has had success with modern scripts and edgy musicals, learns with its clumsy attempt at mounting Will S.’s Much Ado About Nothing. For … [Read more...]
On Broadway, a bad year for musicals, a good one for plays
This Sunday evening, when the American Theatre Wing hits the airwaves with the 66th annual Tony Awards show ― Broadway’s prime national marketing tool ― it will put on its bravest face and claim that the commercial theater is better than ever. In fact, by most subjective opinions ― including mine ― this was the worst season for new musicals in decades. Even the Tonys’ … [Read more...]
Lauderdale Film Fest enters 26th year feeling expansive
The oldest consecutively running such event in Florida, the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival (FLIFF), returns this week for its 26th incarnation, with an ambitious lineup and a far-reaching program. Opening Friday and running through Nov. 11, FLIFF features six world premieres, 15 U.S. premieres, 61 Florida premieres and more than 150 films from more than two dozen countries, … [Read more...]