In the age of COVID-19, Arts Fuse critics have come up with a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, and music — mostly available by streaming — for the coming weeks. More offerings will be added as they come in.
Main Content
Latest in Visual Arts
Visual Arts Commentary: “Placemaking” — Thoughts on the Virus and Our Current Public Environment
Today, our perception of the environment has become narrowed, defensive: the outside world has become worrisome, dangerous, aspirational, and changing.
Latest in Music
Album Review: Khruangbin’s “Mordechai” — Mostly Musical Wallpaper
Khruangbin’s principal strength lies in how well the musicians manage to fit together
Latest in Dance
Dance Commentary: Sally Banes (1950-2020)
Dance critic, scholar, performer, activist Sally Banes died on 14 June in Philadelphia.
Latest in Television
Television Review: Delightfully Revived “Baby-Sitters Club” — More Than ’90s Nostalgia
During a period when we are facing a ferocious pandemic, the biggest Civil Rights movement since the ’60s, and the possibility of flying snakes, it is the perfect time to remake the cheery The Baby-Sitters Club.
Latest Podcast
Podcast Review: “Team Deakins” — For Film Geeks Only (and That’s not a Bad Thing)
The podcast Team Deakins has quite a bit to teach us about the art and craft of cinematography.
Latest in Books
Book Review: “Invisible Years” — A Book for the Ages
Invisible Years is — simultaneously — an indispensable source and a distinguished work of art.
Latest in Theater
Arts Commentary: “Hamilton” — Streaming on Disney Plus, Feeling Like You’re in the Room Where it Happened.
The opportunity to see the culture-changing Broadway phenomenon Hamilton on Disney Plus, sucked up all the arts oxygen over the Fourth of July weekend.
Latest in Film
Film Commentary: Fellini at 100 — How the Mighty Have Tumbled
It seems evident that hardly anyone knows about the centenary of a moviemaker who, in earlier days, was universally revered, whose hallowed name was synonymous with art-house cinema.
Latest in Food
Food Commentary: The Chicken Sandwich Wars — Political Food Fight Revisited
I confess that I was one of those schmucks who tried (and failed) to stay vigilant in my high-minded refusal to eat at Chick-fil-A.
Read the Latest
THE ARTS FUSE TURNS 13! — Our Spring Appeal
During this crisis, please help sustain this independent magazine’s commitment to keeping our arts and culture vibrant and alive.
Film Review: “The Beach House” — Eco-Horrors on Cape Cod
Sharp, simple, and well-attuned to the hopelessly grim tenor of these past few years, The Beach House knows how doomed we all are, says we deserve it, and prays that, after the tide comes in to wash us out, the rest will be left to flourish.
Book Review: “Cool For America” — A World of Dazed Impermanence
Hardly a portrait of glory from sea to shining sea, these tales drop in on estranged, lost, and overwhelmed people.
Book Review: “Crooked Hallelujah” – On Mothers and Daughters
Crooked Hallelujah is a splendid debut, its intricately structured narrative following four generations of a matriarchal family from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
Book Review: “American Radicals” — Unrecognized Champions of 19th-Century Protest
American Radicals is as revealing, riveting, and well-researched as any work of history that I have read in recent years.
Jazz Album Review: “Ballads for Two — Chet Baker and Wolfgang Lackerschmid”
The playing on this 1979 album, which would generally be considered as flawed, is part of the singular (mature) Chet Baker gestalt.