Review

Television Review: “The Curse” — Inept White Saviors

November 11, 2023
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The series’s fierce satiric take down of America’s enlightened white elite is brilliant.

Book Review: Anna Biller’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” — Imprisoned by Toxic Masculinity

November 10, 2023
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“Bluebeard’s Castle” is a sexy but subversive romance novel steeped in Gothic imagery.

Doc Talk: Outspoken and Proud at the Wicked Queer Doc Fest

November 10, 2023
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As these two films at the Wicked Queer Doc Fest indicate, being non-hetero-normative in a patriarchal society is unavoidably a political statement.

Visual Arts Commentary: “Fashioned by Sargent” — The Elephant in the Room

November 9, 2023
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The MFA’s Fashioned by Sargent alludes — only at whisper level — to the fact that many of John Singer Sargent’s clients represent questionable ideals.

Book Review: “The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch” — Jane Austen, Bedeviled

November 9, 2023
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Melinda Taub’s thoroughly enjoyable new novel joins other notable pastiches of Jane Austen’s classic story.

Book Review: “The Vaster Wilds” — A Powerful Annal of Survival

November 9, 2023
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To these eyes, Lauren Groff’s latest novel is her most accomplished yet.

Theater Review: A “Rocky Horror Show” — Tailored for Gen Z

November 8, 2023
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This “Rocky Horror Show” for the Gen Z set contains (at least potentially) enough flash and zap to successfully put across a new take on a campy cult classic.

Children’s Book Reviews: Animal Adaptation and Inspiration

November 8, 2023
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Tired of the same old animal books? Here’s a series filled with fascinating facts, large and small, about farm animals, and an inspiring tale of the bees of Notre Dame.

Book Review: “The New Leviathans” — No Way Out?

November 7, 2023
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John Gray’s pessimism is a direct descendant of the cultural pessimism preached by Oswald Spengler, whose best-seller, “The Decline of the West,” played a major role in the growth of fascism in the 1920s and ’30s.

Film Review: “Priscilla” — Tender, Treacherous Youth

November 6, 2023
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The film beautifully captures a dreamy-nightmare aesthetic, suggesting that Priscilla’s life with Elvis was turbulent roller coaster of romantic highs and materialistic hollowness.

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