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Television True Crime Series: “The Investigation” — Unraveling Evil

March 3, 2021
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The Investigation is a slow-burning thriller that fuses the gravity of a documentary with the darkness of a complex murder mystery.

Film Review: Wither the People of Magnitogorsk — “Kombinat”

March 2, 2021
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Without ignoring the terrible-beautiful magnetism of the industrial imagery we love to hate and hate to love, the camera is gradually, gently, drawn across the river and away from the workday, to spend time with these very real humans who serve the machines.

Rock Album Reviews: New Musical Anarchy from Paul Leary and the Melvins

March 2, 2021
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Unlike so many of the iconoclasts from the ’80s, these architects of alternative rock stay true to their school.

Film Review: “Do Not Split” — A Compelling, Disturbing, and Imperfect Look at the Hong Kong Riots

March 1, 2021
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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

March 1, 2021
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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief bursts of criticism.

Book Review: “Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch” — Nosh Nirvana?

March 1, 2021
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Jake Cohen is “modern” in that he takes a contemporary approach at spreading the gospel; he is an expert at using social media.

Film Review: Nicholas Jarecki’s “Crisis” — Death, Opioids, and Corporate Greed

February 27, 2021
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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.

Classical CD Review: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven’s Ninth

February 27, 2021
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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.

Film Review: “I Care a Lot” — Vague Villainy

February 27, 2021
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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

February 27, 2021
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Jumbo is one of the most magically affecting and visually enthralling romances I’ve seen in quite some time

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