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Book Review: “Dinners With Ruth” — Always Nice But Rarely Incisive

September 30, 2022
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Like a Hallmark movie, Dinners with Ruth is an engaging and entertaining story, with episodes of great pathos. It is an upbeat, easy-to-read gift book, which is undoubtedly what its publisher intended.

Film Review: “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” — Wasted Bandwidth

September 30, 2022
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There’s no real engagement with the ’80s, so this attempt at horror/comedy is politically and emotionally inert, profoundly unfunny and pathetically un-scary.

Film Review: Wait for It… “Hold Your Fire”

September 30, 2022
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At a time when the nation is taking stock of the failures of our history of urban policing and looking for some new approaches, the lessons of Hold Your Fire are needed more urgently than ever.

Film Review: “God’s Country” — Who is to Blame?

September 30, 2022
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In our politically correct times, the temptation would be to make a simplistic film in which Sandra, the good Black woman, is beset by bad white people.

Book Review: “Shmutz: A Novel” — Hasidim in Heat

September 29, 2022
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A young Hasidic woman addicted to Internet porn? Oy vey, who knew?

Television Review: Season Three of “Ramy” — Spreading the Drama Around

September 28, 2022
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Ramy’s drama takes a backseat to those of his relatives and friends, and that ends up expanding the reach and power of the series.

Jazz Album Review: Keith Jarrett’s “Bordeaux Concert” — A Varied Masterpiece

September 28, 2022
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Given Keith Jarrett’s current disability, this new ECM recording is an unexpected gift to his fans.

Jazz Preview: The Scene Lives! — Local Jazz in the Months to Come

September 27, 2022
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Get out there and hear some live music. It’s the best gift you can give to your ears.

Concert Review: Eminent Singer-Songwriter and Guitarist Richard Thompson at the Shalin Liu Performance Center

September 27, 2022
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The caliber of Richard Thompson’s voice is undiminished. His always expressive, frequently soothing timbre was perfectly intact.

Jazz Preview: Aardvark at 50 Sparks a Jazz Scene Sputtering Back to Life in Eastern Massachusetts

September 26, 2022
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The pandemic clouds over the Boston / Cambridge jazz scene are breaking up – not completely by any means – but at last you have a broad menu of live music here to pull you away from your TV bingeing.

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