Review

Film Review: “Elysium” — The Sound and Fury of CGI Signifying … Not Much

August 9, 2013
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Overall, Elysium is an entertaining distraction posing as a meaningful global allegory.

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Film Review: “Le Pont du Nord” — An Entertaining Exercise in Playful Dis-Ease

August 8, 2013
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This entertaining and provocative work, made in 1981 by the now 85-year-old director, fits into his oeuvre as a complement to his best known movie among American art-film fans, 1974’s Céline and Julie Go Boating.

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Theater Review: “Laughing Stock” Redux

August 8, 2013
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The current revival of Laughing Stock, directed again by the playwright, has softer edges than I remember in the earlier one, played with fluidity rather than crackle.

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Theater Review: Shakespeare & Co Mounts a Powerful Staging of “Mother Courage”

August 7, 2013
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Olympia Dukakis makes good on her desire to evoke the weakness the indomitable Mother Courage fights so hard to cover up: the actress conveys the highs and lows of this gargantuan character with enormous power.

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Fuse Album Review: Mark Dresser’s “Nourishments” — Music Tough and Pretty, Smart and Fun

August 6, 2013
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Nourishments is an emphatic musical statement from a seasoned bandleader, returning to the front of a traditional quintet.

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Book Review: “The Amazing Bud Powell” — A Disappointing Study of a Jazz Legend

August 5, 2013
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Ramsey’s book on Bud Powell is both a provocative read and a disappointing one. Anyone thinking this will be an illuminating portrait of a jazz master is likely to suffer a serious case of buyer’s remorse.

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Film Review: Paul Schrader’s “The Canyons” — Roasting in Hell for Eternity is a Given.

August 4, 2013
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The bubbling-over sexuality of Paul Schrader’s The Canyons is surely tongue-in-cheek, amusing in its semen-splashed excessiveness.

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Book Review: “The Hanging Garden” — A Posthumous Gift from a Literary Giant

August 4, 2013
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This novella is a gift to all of us who love Patrick White’s strangely alive prose and a welcome addition to his oeuvre. And for those who don’t know his work, it is a terrific way to be introduced to one of the 20th century’s finest writers.

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Book Review: “Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān” — Rewriting the History of Ideas

August 3, 2013
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“Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān” is a mesmerizing study that will enchant anyone interested in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural explorations of the history of science that transform the way we look at the past and the present.

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CD Review: Dream Pop Gets Serious — the Ambitious Reach of Candy Claws

August 1, 2013
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The latest LP from the dream pop band Candy Claws turns out to be its most profound and impressive statement to date.

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