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Film Review: “Breaking Fast”– The Romantic Life, Among Gay Muslims

January 22, 2021
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Films like Breaking Fast introduce audiences to cultures that they may not be familiar with — that they may even be hostile to — but through conflicts and dreams that are universal, that revolve around family, love, and friendship.

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Film Review: “The White Tiger” — Class Warfare, Indian Style

January 21, 2021
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This is a wicked and entertaining satire on the dizzying class conflicts roiling Indian society, a neo-Marxist story of masters and servants, money and corruption — a Horatio Alger tale with a devilish twist.

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Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places

January 21, 2021
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I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.

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Film Review: “Azizler” (aka Stuck Apart) — Trapped Again

January 20, 2021
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Azizler is a slow burn; unfortunately, the payoff isn’t worth the wait.

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Film Review: “Epicentro” — An Affectionate View of Cuba

January 20, 2021
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Politics is not the filmmaker’s interest in this lovely, affecting documentation of non-bureaucratic, everyday life in Havana.

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Theater Review: “The Race” — Business as Unusual

January 19, 2021
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This is a very effective political drama, a relevant warning about what social critic Chris Hedges calls the formation of “corporate totalitarianism.”

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Arts Remembrance: Phil Spector

January 19, 2021
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The late Phil Spector once famously referred to his songs as “little symphonies for the kids.”

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Book Review: “Freak Out! My Life with the Mothers of Invention” — Intimate Observations

January 19, 2021
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Fans of Frank Zappa who want to know about Frank the man as well as Zappa the musical and political icon would be wise to seek out Freak Out!

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Book Review: Yang Jisheng’s “The World Turned Upside Down”

January 19, 2021
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Those who admire Yang Jisheng’s distinguished career should pick up this book. Those searching for a solid, accessible history of Mao’s Cultural Revolution should look elsewhere.

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Film Review: “Nomadland” — “Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost…”

January 18, 2021
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Fern may be house-less, but she’s not homeless — there’s a difference, she explains; her home will be the road, and the road is full of life, love, challenges, and surprises, all there for the taking.

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