Steig Larson’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a fast-paced, utterly engrossing, reactionarily feminist mystery novel, with a charismatic leading man and a fascinating lead female. But Larson’s novel falls off when you start thinking about writing style, thematic brilliance, or overall writerly aptitude. David Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, in contrast, is almost […]
As I mentioned in my last review, November was full of Shakespeare. My second show was at Brandeis University, featuring an original adaption of Comedy of Errors by Bill Barclay, a Resident Acting Company member of the Actor’s Shakespeare Project. Barclay also directed this unique production, which starred Brandeis University students with award-winning community actors. […]
Cameron Crowe seems a long way away from his glory days in the late nineties/early oughts with this wishy-washy family film. The premise involves Matt Damon as a single father of two whose wife has recently died. Instead of doing the sensible thing like grief counseling, he quits his job and moves across the state […]
Brad Bird, the man behind such films as The Incredibles and Ratatouille, shifts from the realm of animation to live action for the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise. For those of you who haven’t seen the other three, fear not. MI4 is about as stand-alone as any sequel can get. If you’re looking […]
Red Sandcastle Theatre’s holiday pantomime was a silly, boring and painfully unfunny affair full of too-long and uninventive musical numbers, tacky and unfair Rob Ford jokes and truly dreadful writing from the otherwise outrageously talented Rosemary Doyle. Alice in Blunderland– presented as the indie, non-conformist alternative to the more corporate (and vastly superior) Ross Petty […]
I’m not sure Terrence Malick believes in God but he most certainly believes in the power of cinema. After sitting through the two-and-a-half hour non-linear story of existence and how it means nothing in the grand scheme of the universe but means everything to the people existing, I went home, showered, and saw it again […]
Once art-house director now studio comedy auteur David Gordon Green treats us to a not-so-typical night on the town in The Sitter, an R-rated comedy starring Jonah Hill. The basic premise of the film involves Hill as a college dropout stuck babysitting for a buxom brunette for the night. When his girlfriend calls promising sex […]
The Next Stage Festival is the fascinating bridge between a show’s Fringe Festival run and its life beyond the circuit. It’s an inspired idea and a chance for some truly splendid indie theatre to get a little more attention than it did/would amidst hundreds of Fringe offerings in the summer. There are 12 shows this […]