Commentary
“Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today’s Crown Jewels.” — Eric Bentley
Brian Carpenter and the Ghost Train Orchestra are not about re-creating either hot jazz from the ’20s or novelty works from the ’30s and ’40s. They’re interested in capturing the spirit that they perceive to be inside these almost-forgotten pieces and using that spirit to make original new music.
Without its many steamy lesbian sex interludes tarting up what could otherwise be classified as a routine narrative, would “Blue is the Warmest Color” have garnered so many rave reviews and prizes?
Why haven’t more movies been made about American slavery? Hollywood studio racism is certainly a prime factor; but even for determined anti-racists, there’s also the aesthetic problem of creating a compelling film drama.
Capleton’s cancellation at Boston’s Hibernian Hall shows that reggae stars can’t easily escape their anti-gay discographies.
The late Arthur Danto was open to and appreciative of all sorts of possibilities in art, as other visual arts critics were not.
Any book in which the fourth sentence is “The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia” runs the risk of overstating its case from the get-go.
The opportunity to protest the presence of Tea Party mega-funder David Koch on the board of WGBH this Wednesday should not be missed by anyone who is interested in preserving the soul (and/or sanity) of public broadcasting.
Today, the fountain at Copley Place feels embarrassing in some way; not its form or execution, but its very existence.
Movie Commentary: Handicapping the Oscars
The nominees for Best Picture are a deserving lot, except for “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which is a bloated mess of a movie that is an hour too long .
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