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Film Review: “The Damned” — Horror on Ice

January 8, 2025
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“The Damned” is a perfect little ice-cold January horror gem blending historical, psychological, and folk chills into a bleak midwinter’s tale to keep you up through the longest nights of the year.

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Jazz Album Reviews and Commentary: Jazz Composers’ Omnibus 2024, Take 2

January 8, 2025
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In four (more) projects from 2024, jazz-oriented composers supply some of the decade’s best music so far.

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Book Review: “Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother” — He Wasn’t an Underachiever

January 7, 2025
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Biographer Robert S. Bader is an engaging writer and meticulous researcher. And handy here, he’s able to be tactful, but not forgiving, when describing lousy human behavior.

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Book Review: “Mood Machine” — In the Mood for Manipulation

January 7, 2025
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Some rugged individualists may want to break out of the corporate cycle of dependency. If they do, they might even come across music they love that they would never have dreamed existed in the Spotify universe.

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Book Review: “Carceral Apartheid” — Prisons Made to Degrade

January 7, 2025
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Brittany Friedman’s hope is that awareness of the racism she describes — in particular the abuse and corruption that she found in the prisons of California — will encourage readers to “take a critical view of society and examine the dark side of the state.”

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Book Review: The Rise and Fall of a Multivocal and Multicultural Alternative — “The Village Voice”

January 6, 2025
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Looking back, the writing in the “Village Voice” was as good as Tricia Romano’s subjects remember. She excerpts paragraphs and the language is fresh, distinctive, sometimes profane, and always worth reading. For those who wrote books, it will send you back to the bookshelf.

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Visual Arts Review: “Lighting the Way — South Coast Women’s Lives, Labors, Love”

January 6, 2025
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This exhibition offers much to appreciate about South Coast women, whose lives and accomplishments have played a crucial role in shaping the region.

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Opera Review: Conductor Frieder Bernius Continues to Strike Gold with “Der Taucher”

January 6, 2025
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Any opera lover will find much to admire and enjoy in this work, based on a famous 27-strophe poem by Friedrich Schiller that Schubert set in its entirety to music.

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Coming Attractions: January 5 through 20 — What Will Light Your Fire

January 5, 2025
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Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

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