Review

Television Review: “An American Pickle” — Sour to a Fault

August 13, 2020
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Seth Rogen puts in double duty as an early 20th century Jewish immigrant and his modern great grandson in a comedy that starts off sweet but leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Classical CD Review: The Symphonies of Max Bruch — Getting the Attention They Deserve

August 12, 2020
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This is a conductor and ensemble that have the measure of Max Bruch’s style and voice well in hand.

Pop Review: Glass Animals Lose Their Voice

August 12, 2020
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The Oxford band’s third album dispenses with personality in favor of bland trap pop.

Film Review: “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” — A Contrarian View

August 12, 2020
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This is not a music documentary, it’s a kind of jaunty-artsy immersion in and around the Newport Jazz festival, including scenes of the host city Newport, the America’s Cup race, festival goers, kids in playgrounds, etc.

Film Review: “The Rabbi Goes West” — Jews Coddled in Big Sky Country

August 12, 2020
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This is a film for another moment in time, an imaginary if not necessarily utopian moment when being Jewish is less roiled and bedeviled from within and without.

Classical CD Reviews: A Roundup of Beethoven Symphonies

August 11, 2020
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Evaluations of a smorgasbord of Beethoven symphony recordings.

Book Review: “Difficult Light” — Words Are Amazing Things

August 11, 2020
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A supple, evocative novel that meditates on family and loss and art.

Film Review: Not Much of a Barfly — Drinking Red Wine with Writer Charles Bukowski

August 11, 2020
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“I don’t like writers. . . . Writers are very despicable people. Plumbers are better. Used car salesmen. They’re all more human than writers.”

Book Review: “Hollywood Babylon II” Revisited

August 10, 2020
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Hollywood Babylon II is almost as addictive, seductive, compulsively page-turning as its inglorious Hollywood Babylon predecessor..

Film Review: Shudder’s “La Llorona” — A Supernatural Reckoning with Guatemalan Genocide

August 10, 2020
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La Llorona’s deepest horrors flow from real history, from the atrocities inflicted by powerful men and the institutions established to ensure they get away with it.

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