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A gorgeous documentary examines the 1990 heist of priceless art from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. By Betsy Sherman It must be hard to decide at what point to undertake a documentary about an ongoing investigation. What if events conspire to make the film you’ve shot seem half-baked, or even irrelevant? Rebecca Dreyfus’ “Stolen,” about…
Read MoreBruce Springsteen’s latest album, widely billed as his homage to folk music, is a tribute to Pete Seeger “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions,” Bruce Springsteen. By James Marcus It’s hard to pin down exactly when my Bruce Springsteen problem began. As a teenager I worshipped the guy, and still recall a blistering 1977 show…
Read MoreBy Debra Cash From the hype, you’d think that ten years ago British choreographer/director Matthew Bourne was the first person to develop a post-Freudian “Swan Lake” or cross-dress a ballet production, and you’d be wrong. You’d be right, however, to call Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake” a phenomenon. In 1996-97 the work became the longest running…
Read MoreWell-crafted fiction about the politics and psychosis of the sixties is becoming a growing industry. The Last of Her Kind, by Sigrid Nunez (Farrar Straus and Giroux); “Eat the Document: A Novel” by Dana Spiotta (Scribner) By Harvey Blume The legacy of the sixties keeps coming at us. By now, even President Bush might have…
Read MoreBy Adrienne LaFrance Picture an alternate 2006 in which the internet slave trade in America is an integral part of the economy, only white men have the right to vote, and culture is devoid of jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and countless other things. Head to Fenway and you’ll hear the national anthem, “Dixie,” played before…
Read MoreThe current kings of sly-clown fox-rock, Eagles of Death Metal and Electric Six know how to put the fun back into rock and roll. The Eagles of Death Metal, “Death by Sexy” (Downtown); Electric Six, “Senor Smoke” (Metropolis Records) By Milo Miles Rock and roll used to be a joke. The most dangerous joke in…
Read More“Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity” by Hal Niedzviecki. (City Lights) By Adrienne LaFrance A word to the mohawked and tattooed, to those who reject cell phones and popular music. Yes, you, the self-proclaimed non-conformists: You’re not special. Or maybe more aptly, you’re just as unique as the droves of people trying…
Read MoreA consumer guide for those who want the low-down on the best of the recent crop of music fundamentalists.
Read MoreThe Italian composer’s famous masterpiece “La Traviata” receives a production that is worthy of the opera’s enduring artistry. By Mark Kroll The Boston Lyric Opera has just begun a nice long run of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” and this is a good thing for Boston’s opera lovers. “La Traviata” finds Verdi at the height of…
Read MoreFull disclosure: my mother died of lung cancer, brought on by a decades-long addiction to the product satirized in the new film “Thank You for Smoking,” directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman) from a novel by Christopher Buckley (son of William F. Buckley). So maybe I’m not the right person to be reviewing…
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