Month: March 2012

Film Review: Life Without Principle

March 16, 2012
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Director Johnnie To has a playfulness found in much Hong Kong cinema. He has found a different way to unfold a story, making clear how money and greed can inform everything, but with plenty of room for humor and for good fortune.

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Theater Review: “Next to Normal” Takes American Musicals Into the New Millennium

March 16, 2012
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This musical’s challenging, raw, and poignant storyline, along with the stunning work of the SpeakEasy Stage Company cast and designers create a can’t-be-missed, far from normal production.

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Poetry Review: Yves Bonnefoy — A Provocative “Second Simplicity”

March 13, 2012
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This handsome edition of Yves Bonnefoy’s recent poetry and prose in English translation is a stunning presentation of a major poet.

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Film Review: “In Darkness” — Not Just Another Holocaust Movie

March 12, 2012
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Twenty-one years after she received a Golden Globe for “Europa Europa,” director Agnieszka Holland returns with another uncompromising vision of perseverance and the power of human connection in the worst of times.

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Theater Review: Freedom for “The Whipping Man”

March 11, 2012
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An unusual and powerful historical drama that looks at the troubled relationship between Jews and freed slaves at the end of The Civil War.

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Concert Review: Yeol Eum Son at Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA

March 9, 2012
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Ms. Son’s performance of Debussy’s Preludes nos. 3 – 8, while mostly note-perfect, was marked by a tentativeness that kept any of them from really blossoming.

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Book Commentary: Hooked on Phonics? — A Brief Reply to Gary Lutz’s “The Sentence is a Lonely Place”

March 9, 2012
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While sound is certainly important, and language in the proper hands has its own music, syllabic harmonies need not be trumpeted as though they were the foundation of good prose.

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Music Feature: Follow the Lieder — Discovering Lazar Weiner’s Yiddish Art Song

March 8, 2012
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When the Boston Jewish Music Festival presented a special afternoon of Lazar Weiner’s Yiddish Art Songs, it became clear that it’s time for a reappraisal that will bring these small, intense gems back into broader musical circulation.

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Book Review and Interview: “The Lost History of 1914” — Almost the War That Wasn’t

March 8, 2012
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In his exploration of history, Jack Beatty suggests that World War I, as we know it, was an improbable event.

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Music Commentary: The Problem of the Jazz Piano Concerto – Side A

March 7, 2012
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When the jazz composer is the soloist, which is usually the case, he or she ironically revives one of the most venerable traditions in classical music.

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