Russia

Theater Review: “The Gaaga” — A Savagely Funny Dream of Ukrainian Retribution

June 8, 2023
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The Gaaga’s humor is driven by rage, anger, and disgust, emotions that are not often found in our domesticated (for easy consumption) theater scene.

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Book Review: “War Diary” — When Dread Replaces the Everyday

April 16, 2023
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Ukrainian writer, artist and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets’ diary blends the visceral with the mundane, showing just how quickly dread replaces everyday life.

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Film Interview: “The New Greatness Case” – Caught on Camera, But Who’s Guilty?

June 12, 2022
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In the annals of Russian repression, The New Greatness Case was a display of government overkill — until the events of this year redefined overkill.

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Film Reviews: “Donbass” and “Babi Yar. Context” — Two Views of Destruction in Ukraine from Sergei Loznitsa

April 14, 2022
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Donbass is a powerfully gritty portrayal of thuggish aggression by people who felt empowered, with Russian support, to steal from, torment, and kill their neighbors.

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Book Review: Russia’s “Vodka Politics” — An Inseparable Duo

April 3, 2014
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What about today? Has Russia finally hit bottom and recovered? Is the political economy of vodka a thing of the past?

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Film Review: Back from the Moscow International Film Festival

July 2, 2013
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Russian intellectuals privately grasp that they must seem like jackasses to the outside world with their primitive attitudes about homosexuality, aligning not with Western Europe but with Nigeria and Uganda and the Muslim world.

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Short Fuse: Russian Dissident Garry Kasparov — Going to Jail for Pussy Riot

August 21, 2012
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Unlike the rock star supporters of Pussy Riot, Garry Kasparov lives in Moscow, which means, given how the Putin regime has dealt with critics, he has a lot more to fear than, say, Madonna, who nevertheless should be applauded for speaking out at her Moscow concert.

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Book Review: A Cinematic Russian Winter (Updated)

April 21, 2011
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Russian Winter is part mystery and part love story, drawing on the (overly) familiar tropes of each: the missing jewels, the deceived lovers, and so on. The material is not original, but it is workable and proffers plenty of Hollywood glamor. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay. Harper Perennial, 496 pages, $14.99. By Nora Delany It…

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Theater Review: Stuck on “The Coast of Utopia”

March 24, 2007
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Not every critic is inspired by British playwright Tom Stoppard’s epic, Tony award-winning trilogy about the trials and tribulations of the 19th century Russian radical Alexander Herzen. Download the podcast By Bill Marx I had high expectations for Tom Stoppard’s labor of love, but walked away from his bloated homage to the great Russian journalist…

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Dance/Movie Review: Heart Throbs — “Ballet Russes”

November 26, 2005
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I enjoyed the movie —- critics from outside the dance world have found Ballet Russes charming, too — but the filmmakers’ real gifts are the oral histories that they collected from these dancers just before it was too late.

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