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Film Review: “The Automat” — A Documentary Love-In to the Restaurant Chain

May 13, 2022
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What could have been a fantastic twenty-minute short becomes a tedious slog as a stretched-out feature.

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Book Excerpt: Helen Epstein’s “Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer During Covid”

May 11, 2022
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Just after Covid arrived in North America, journalist Helen Epstein was diagnosed with endometrial cancer — one of a predicted 66,570 new cases of cancer of the uterine body in the United States in 2021.

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Concert Review: Big Thief at Roadrunner

April 16, 2022
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Big Thief is a largely somber folk-rock outfit fronted by introspective singer/songwriter Adrianne Lenker that doesn’t care much about showmanship.

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Film Reviews: “Donbass” and “Babi Yar. Context” — Two Views of Destruction in Ukraine from Sergei Loznitsa

April 14, 2022
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Donbass is a powerfully gritty portrayal of thuggish aggression by people who felt empowered, with Russian support, to steal from, torment, and kill their neighbors.

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Visual Arts Review: “Displaced: Raida Adon’s Strangeness” — The Remains of Home

April 4, 2022
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Raida Adon rejects political categories because they fail to capture the utter strangeness of lived experience.

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Concert Review/Interview: America at Lowell Memorial Auditorium

March 28, 2022
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In Lowell, America played to a packed, enthusiastic, Centrum Silver-popping crowd who sang along with the band’s impressively deep roster of hits.

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Concert Review: Billy Strings Blesses Roadrunner, Memorably

March 17, 2022
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Where Roadrunner goes from here remains to be seen, but Billy Strings did his part to open the room with a bang of a blessing.

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Jazz Album Review: “In Common III” — Adventures of an All-Star Rhythm Section

March 5, 2022
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With their shifting textures and compositional variety, the relatively short pieces show the ways — in this case mostly gentle and lyrical — five musicians can fruitfully interact.

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Film Commentary: What Disney’s “Encanto” Says About Colombian Realities

February 23, 2022
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In Colombia and Encanto, willful ignorance is the price paid for reassurance.

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Film Review: “Jackass Forever” – Bad Taste — Our Miracle Elixir

February 11, 2022
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Jackass Forever is incredibly stupid, totally irresponsible, completely juvenile, and it made me feel alive in my body for the first time in weeks.

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