Review

Jazz Album Review: A Flowering of Charlie Rouse’s “Cinnamon Flower”

September 16, 2025
Posted in , , ,

A rare chance to listen to saxophonist Charlie Rouse with a biggish band, the new “Cinnamon Flower” is a welcome set.

Rock Album Review: From the Vaults — Miltown’s “Tales of Never Letting Go” Holds Up After 25 Years

September 16, 2025
Posted in , , ,

Super-talented band with sharp material, big label backing, hot-shot producer, top-shelf recording studio—what could go wrong? Plenty.

Book Review: Soprano, Queen, Myth — Maria Callas in Jerome Charyn’s “Maria La Divina”

September 16, 2025
Posted in , ,

At the very least, Jerome Charyn’s considerable novelistic imagination should send readers back to any number of documentary films and, most important, to the still very real fact of Maria Callas’s vital recorded legacy.

Book Review: From Protest to Progress — Abdul-Jabbar’s Memoir Battles Historical Amnesia

September 15, 2025
Posted in , ,

Given Donald Trump’s claim that American history has been “rewritten” and transformed into a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” “We All Want To Change the World” may be banned in some school libraries in America.

Visual Arts Review: Exotic Blooms and Curious Creatures — Rachel Ruysch at the MFA

September 14, 2025
Posted in , ,

This exhibition takes viewers around the world through the specimens brought to Amsterdam by Dutch explorers. It invites close looking, and the museum has prepared a scavenger hunt handout with select bugs and flowers to seek out.

Book Review: Risk, Rebellion, and Regret — Larry Charles Tells All in “Comedy Samurai”

September 14, 2025
Posted in , ,

Larry Charles is by every standard a seminal figure in contemporary humor, on the tube and in movie theaters. Why doesn’t everyone know his name

Book Review: A Killing with Everything But a Body – “Murder in the Dollhouse”

September 13, 2025
Posted in , ,

There is a moral to this story, besides the obvious one, that murder is a horrible crime whether the body is found or not. If there are wealthy women with weaknesses to exploit, predators will find them.

Film Review: “The Long Walk” — A Vicious But Timely Parable

September 13, 2025
Posted in , ,

Audiences prefer that political messages be buried under heaps of horror, but this film may be extreme enough to alert some viewers to look beneath the bloody spectacle.

Film Review: “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” – A Crowning Achievement

September 12, 2025
Posted in , ,

The concluding chapter in the Downton Abbey saga is a classy and entertaining multileveled melodrama that features excellent production values and a script with a light touch.

Television Review: “The Paper” — A First Draft in Need of Revision

September 12, 2025
Posted in , ,

This is a light, diverting show, well-suited as background fodder, but unlikely to garner the same following as “The Office” or “Parks and Recreation.”

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives