Review

Film Review: “Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful” — Naughty or Nice?

July 24, 2020
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In this documentary, the photographer and his art are not so much defended as explained through the voices of the world’s top models and movie icons with whom he worked.

Rap Album Review: “Miles” — Blu & Exile’s World of Anguish and Beauty

July 24, 2020
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For an hour and a half, Blu examines himself on Miles, trying to understand who he is and where he comes from.

Film Feature: The Salem Film Festival — Virtual, and as Vital as Ever

July 24, 2020
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Filmgoers hankering for some excellent and exciting new documentary features and shorts should check out the Salem Film Festival, which has gone online.

Television Review: HBO’s “Perry Mason” — American Justice, with Loose Ends

July 24, 2020
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The parallel plot — maybe the real plot — percolates just below the surface: the meta-textual challenge of figuring out how the HBO Perry Mason will morph into something resembling its CBS progenitor.

Classical CD Reviews: Philip Glass, “Music in Eight Parts,” Thomas Adès, “In Seven Days,” and Anna Clyne, “Dance”

July 23, 2020
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Music in Eight Parts is a welcome and inviting addition to the Philip Glass canon; the Summer of Thomas Adès continues with a stirring new recording of the British composer’s keyboard work; Anna Clyne’s Dance is, without a doubt, one of the finest pieces I’ve heard this year.

Television Review: “Fisherman’s Friends” — Corny, but Cornwall Shines

July 23, 2020
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What makes this somewhat derivative movie soar is its music.

Book Review: “In the Land of Good Living” — Satisfying Your Gonzo Curiosity

July 22, 2020
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Ah, Florida, “the grease trap under America’s George Foreman Grill”: not just “weird America,” also “impending America.”

Book Review: “Twilight of Democracy” — A Slim Investigation of the “Clerks”

July 21, 2020
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Twilight of Democracy made me yearn (uncharacteristically) for hard scientific data to supplement  Anne Applebaum’s punditry about the pundits.

Rock Album Review: Cloud Nothings — Still Facing Down Existential Dread

July 21, 2020
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Cloud Nothings’ latest effort is less muscular than their previous work, but it still contains its fair share of hooky bliss.

Film Reconsideration: Greta Garbo — 30 Years After Her Death

July 20, 2020
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Women’s maltreatment for 3,000 years registers on Greta Garbo’s tragic visage, whether she is Anna Christie, Camille, or Queen Christina.

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