By Harvey Blume The Baader Meinhof Complex (Der Baader Meinhof Komplex) Directed by Uli Edel At Kendall Square and Coolidge Corner Cinemas There are some things the German Red Army Faction — the RAF, or Baader Meinhof Gang — had in common with ultra-militant elements of the American New Left, as I knew and participated […]
Film
Short Fuse: Tarantino’s Nazi-killing Cotton Candy
By Harvey Blume Let me tell you why I heartily dislike and contemn Quentin Tarantino’s “The Inglorious Basterds.”
Culture Vulture: A Unique Blend of Jewish Memoir and Musicology
THE THOMASHEVSKYS: MUSIC AND MEMORIES OF A LIFE IN THE YIDDISH THEATER. Written and hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Directed by Patricia Birch, with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. by Helen Epstein I’m a fan of the serious introspective kind of memoir, that tries to wrest meaning from existential and emotional chaos. […]
Culture Vulture: NYTimes wrong about “Julie and Julia”
by Helen Epstein Go here for information about a live-chat, scheduled for August 23rd, with Helen Epstein on “The Art of Narrative Writing.” Despite what the NYTimes thinks Meryl Streep cooks up a storm in “Julie and Julia.” I usually trust the Times‘ A. O. Scott on movies, but this time I don’t share his […]
Movie Review: “Tyson” — Interpretation, Explanation or Sheer Exploitation?
James Toback’s new documentary about boxer Mike Tyson explores a demonic urgency that fattens on the destruction of others. By Harvey Blume At the end of “Tyson,” James Toback’s documentary about him, the ex-heavyweight champ, now 43 years old, breathes heavily and falls silent. He seems talked out, and is certainly, by his own admission, […]
Film Commentary: Spoiling “Oil!”
By Gary Schwartz Director Paul Thomas Anderson is no Upton Sinclair. Half an hour into Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will be Blood, shown on Dutch television the other night, I told Loekie how intensely happy I was that the film existed. A few months ago I read the book on which the film is […]
Fuse Flash: Revving up Cultural Tourism
By Bill Marx “Boston is adrift in the brave new competition among big American cities vying for tourist dollars.” Maureen Dezell, WBUR Maureen made that charge back in July 2006 in an article that turned out to be one of the last posts on the late WBUR Arts Online. Now that the quote, along with […]
Cultural Commentary: Crunch Time for Arts Coverage at The Boston Globe
by Bill Marx A recent study in Editor & Publisher delivers the lowdown; with its circulation down about 20% in four years, The Boston Globe is in free fall. Two major investors in The New York Times, which owns the Globe, are “challenging the company’s investment decisions, including its commitment to the struggling newspaper industry […]
Movie Review: ‘Sweeney Todd’
By Caldwell Titcomb Stephen Sondheim has written the music and lyrics of at least a half dozen of the twentieth century’s greatest works for the musical theater. One of them is – to provide its full title – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It has now been turned into a movie, which […]
Arts Commentary: Pauline Kael’s Critical Influence — Revisited
The Hub Review features a perceptively waspish consideration of Pauline Kael’s unhealthy influence on film reviewers, taking scathing aim at a couple of her jittery heirs, A.O. Scott of the NYTimes and Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. I particularly like Tom Garvey’s concluding paragraph: But if the Paulettes have all repudiated their maker, where’s her baleful […]