By Chloe Elder Auto shops and heavy machinery might not be the first thing you think of as a backdrop for artwork. But the artists of the Boynton Beach Arts District have turned Industrial Avenue into just that. The arts district lies inconspicuously off Boynton Beach Boulevard at 422 Industrial Ave. The district houses a series of warehouses that function as galleries, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 17-19
Art: One of the least well-known painters of the Ashcan School was Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002), a Philadelphian who moved 100 years ago to New York with her husband, fellow artist William Meyerowitz. His work is well-known in modernist circles, and Bernstein’s has grown in reputation since her death at 111, and her pictures fit in well with the George Bellows-William Glackens … [Read more...]
The View From Home 41: New Releases and Notable Screenings, Aug. 7-31
It’s difficult for me to write about Grosse Pointe Blank and especially High Fidelity with any degree of objectivity. For almost 10 years since its theatrical release, High Fidelity held the unshakable position of my favorite film of all-time. This might sound like an eccentric or dubious choice coming from a lover of Tarkovsky, Bresson, Godard, et al. So be it. For the past … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Rigby sparkles as ‘Peter’; Mad Cat’s take on ‘Hamlet’ engrossing
Reviewers are by nature a skeptical bunch, so when former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby announced ― some 22 years ago ― that she was reinventing herself as a musical theater performer and taking to the skies as Peter Pan, it seemed gimmick casting at best. Undaunted by critical doubters, she took her craft seriously, training to be an actress as diligently as she did as an … [Read more...]
‘Red Lights’ a ludicrous mess
In Red Lights, Cillian Murphy comes this close to making out with Cillian Murphy. It happens in a rote nightmare sequence at the height of his character’s supernatural crisis. Cillian Murphy’s soul clings to the roof of his apartment, while Cillian Murphy’s body lies in bed, unblissfully asleep. The soul descends ever so slowly toward its host body, until it looks like the … [Read more...]
Edward Gorey, the gentle curmudgeon: At the Norton
The average museum visitor spends about 20 seconds looking at a work of art, but if you follow that guideline when you visit Elegant Enigmas: the Art of Edward Gorey, you’re going to miss a lot. The exhibit, which runs at the Norton Museum of Art until Sept. 2, contains more than 150 of the artist’s befuddling illustrations, sketchbooks, illustrated envelopes, book cover ideas … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 21-22
Theater: GableStage and its artistic director Joe Adler have an affinity for the plays of David Mamet, so it was probably inevitable that he would bring to the area the wily wordsmith’s latest Broadway script, Race, which looks at three attorneys, two black and one white, offered a chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman. As the characters … [Read more...]
‘Cat in Paris’ looks good, but dialogue’s worth a hairball
In just over three minutes, the short film The Extinction of the Saber Tooth Housecat, which precedes the animated feature film A Cat in Paris in its theatrical run, marvels with the unfettered joy of filmmaking. There is no dialogue, just an animated feline frolicking through a pristine, real-life field, while a meteor hurtles through space. The quickening editing scheme is … [Read more...]
The View From Home 40: New DVD releases and notable screenings, July 10-31
Everything old is new again. In 2005, The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society commissioned a film adaptation of the sci-fi’s master’s classic The Call of Cthulu. Since the book was written in 1927, the filmmakers shot their picture contemporaneously as a silent film. Outside of the eccentric canon of Guy Maddin, this idea was almost unheard-of then, and even post-Artist, silent … [Read more...]
Chamber festival opens 21st year: A look at the recorded legacy
The 21st edition of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival opens Friday night at the Persson Recital Hall on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University, and with its arrival we can say that the summer season in South Florida is truly in full swing. This year’s four programs feature some discoveries, including rare works by Alexandre Tansman (Septet for trumpet, viola and … [Read more...]