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.
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Latest in Visual Arts
Visual Arts Review: Trump Likes Minimalism? Really?
All four budgets that Donald Trump and his sycophants sent to Congress had nada for the arts and humanities.
Latest in Music
Classical CD Review: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven’s Ninth
Manfred Honeck’s one of the finest and most exciting Beethoven conductors around, but his interpretive decisions result in an account of the Ninth’s climactic sequence that comes over as episodic and mannered.
Latest in Dance
Arts Feature: Dance Favorites of 2020
Community is what I miss most of all the pandemic’s deprivations—doing stuff with others.
Latest in Television
Television Review: “It’s a Sin” — Poignant Remembrance of the AIDS Era
Despite its inevitable darkness, It’s a Sin never loses sight of the joys of existence.
Latest Podcast
Podcast Review: “CHECK YOUR HEAD: Mental Help for Musicians”
It is vital to take into account the pivotal role that money, politics, and racism play in the availability and efficacy of mental health services.
Latest in Books
Book Review: “Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch” — Nosh Nirvana?
Jake Cohen is “modern” in that he takes a contemporary approach at spreading the gospel; he is an expert at using social media.
Latest in Theater
Theater Review: “Solitaire Suite” — Strange Things Flashing in the Night
The show is made all the more powerful by the fact that we’ve now spent 12 months enduring Covid and four years of science denial and “alternative facts.”
Latest in Film
Film Review: Nicholas Jarecki’s “Crisis” — Death, Opioids, and Corporate Greed
Crisis takes on the opioid crisis – which has killed more people than the war in Vietnam — and gives corporate villainy (Big Pharma) the Hollywood treatment.
Latest in Food
Book Review: Black Food Matters — “The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food”
The Rise is the rare cookbook that does more than offer a culinary and educational journey. It inspires.
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KEEP THE ARTS FUSE LIT! — Our Winter Appeal
Please take this opportunity to make a difference for a magazine that is committed to sustaining the future of the arts in this country.
Film Review: “Do Not Split” — A Compelling, Disturbing, and Imperfect Look at the Hong Kong Riots
Is Do Not Split a fine example of provocative filmmaking? Yes. Should you watch it? Certainly. Will it help you understand the forces feeding the discontent and shaping the discourse generated by the conflict? Not really.
March Short Fuses – Materia Critica
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief bursts of criticism.
Film Review: “I Care a Lot” — Vague Villainy
The problem with I Care a Lot is that, despite its intimations of reality, there are tropes and story elements that come off as melodramatic for melodrama’s sake.
Film Review: “Jumbo” — Love with the Proper Object
Jumbo is one of the most magically affecting and visually enthralling romances I’ve seen in quite some time
Music Profile: Violinist, Teacher, Composer, and Arranger Mimi Rabson — Making a Life in Art
The life of a working musician is not a second-class life, and Mimi Rabson’s is Exhibit A: “I try to get past the limits of the definitions and get to the joy.”