Review

Fuse Film Review: The “Hunger Games” Sequel — Better Than The First Time Around

November 22, 2013
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Jennifer Lawrence has blossomed into a charismatic screen presence in her gala return as Katniss, the beloved bow-and-arrow heroine of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

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Classical Music CD Reviews: Lang Lang plays Prokofiev and Bartók (Sony Classical), Philadelphia Orchestra plays Stravinsky (Deutsche Grammophon)

November 21, 2013
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So we’ve got a mixed bag. If you get this Lang Lang disc, it should be for the Bartók, but not the Prokofiev: as things stand, the competition there simply blows Lang out of the water.

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Classical Music CD Reviews: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Early Classical Opera

November 20, 2013
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Two discs released by Harmonia Mundi benefit from the dramatic flair of conductor René Jacobs.

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Rock Album Review: Beady Eye — “BE” Good?

November 19, 2013
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At its best, “BE” is an adventurous album, which automatically makes it an improvement over Beady Eye’s 2011 debut.

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Dance Review: The Stephen Petronio Company — Creating Fascinating Structures of Dance

November 17, 2013
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I was mesmerized by the coherence of the shifting patterns, their ideas so clearly presented, even though the work by no means provided more than a suggestion of a story.

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Theater Review: Israeli Stage Brings “The Whore From Ohio” to Boston

November 16, 2013
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“The Whore From Ohio” is a provocative reminder that the same creature that is born to eat, drink, copulate, rot, and die is also a creature that dreams, tells stories, contemplates its own existence, and attends the theater.

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Book Review: “Some Day” — A Memorable First Novel about Waiting for Love

November 16, 2013
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In “Some Day,” Shemi Zarhin has masterfully woven together a tangle of bittersweet tales and elusive dreams. it is a book that is a pleasure to read and reread.

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Theater Review: “The After-Dinner Joke” — How We are Out-Sourcing Our Consciences

November 15, 2013
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British dramatist Caryl Churchill proffers a valuable line of satiric attack on our delusions of doing good, so it is easy to forgive the dramatist her broad and scattershot comic approach.

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Film Review: “The Broken Circle Breakdown” — Hang on for the Second Half

November 14, 2013
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The first half of “The Broken Circle Breakdown” is directed in the most conventional way. In the better second half, the leads dig deeply into their characters, sing bluegrass wonderfully.

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Book Review: “Wail” — A Great Biography of Jazz Legend Bud Powell

November 13, 2013
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Peter Pullman deplores (without bathos) the wreckage of Bud Powell’s life and mourns (without tears) the consequent loss of so much masterful music. And his story of Powell’s life is even grimmer than the one we have previously been told.

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