Film
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
French actor Gaspard Ulliel stars in a surprisingly classy prequel in the Hannibal Lecter saga. By Betsy Sherman Considering that the road from the 1991 movie “The Silence of the Lambs” to “Hannibal Rising” consists of a dreadfully over-the-top sequel (the 2001 “Hannibal”) and a decent remake (the 2002 “Red Dragon,” from a novel which…
From gophers, “Ghostbusters” and groundhogs to “Broken Flowers” and beyond, Murray evolves into something much more meaningful.
By Adrienne LaFrance Before you say “I told you so,” let me explain. I wasn’t expecting Annie Hall. I thought Because I Said So might be likable in a Something’s Gotta Give kind of way. I was wrong. Diane Keaton’s latest star vehicle is an empty vessel of a romantic comedy, pieced together by poorly…
Visual Art Commentary: Silence Is Complicity — Why Museums Must Use Their Voice to Defend Democracy