Ann Lemons Pollack
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Babies
Just in time for Mother's Day, heee-res "Babies"!! Put the DVD on the gift list for a new Mom or an older one. Thomas Balmes' film, a fixating documentary, will teach her one key thing: The baby will grow up, will be happy and healthy, will learn to cope with the world. Balmes and some
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The Secret of Kells
"The Secret of Kells," which sneaked under the radar to gain an Academy Award nomination for animation, didn't win, but it's one of the most beautiful animated films I've ever seen. Directed by the Irish artist, Tomm Moore, it was put together by artists in Belgium, Hungary, Brazil and France, and it's a slight twist
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Mid-August Lunch
Gianni Di Gregorio really has bitten off a large mouthful in "Mid-August Lunch," a light, frothy tale with an uncommonly hard backbone. He's the writer and director, and the leading actor, and he is trying to deal with four very elderly women, all non-actors, one portraying his 93-year-old mother, with whom he shares an apartment.
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Kampai Sushi Bar
Tucked away on the ground floor of a large, rather anonymous modern apartment building, Kampai Sushi Bar seems to be a very neighborhood-local place. The only business on the West Pine block between Kingshighway and Euclid, it chugs along quietly, or so it seems. But we suspect they’re hoping for a little late-night action
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This Week’s Wine, May 5, 2010
The old and the new blend nicely in Hermann, Missouri, and a weekend spent among spring flowers and old friends, with the added benefit of good wine and food, always lifts the spirits. The last weekend of April has become a regular trip to celebrate the release of a new vintage of Norton, Stone Hill
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Korean BBQ Burgers
Bloggers are a source of many of the new cookbooks, and I've found a favorite from a blogger I haven't read – until now. Jaden Hair's The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, from her blog steamykitchen.com, offers Asian flavors that can be created in American kitchens. Not such an unusual idea, but sometimes a set of recipes
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Tartuffe
The play may be almost 350 years old, but "Tartuffe" is as contemporary as this morning's news, and as a classic play, it receives a proper classic treatment at the hands of Deanna Jent and the Mustard Seed Theatre. The play continues through next weekend at the Fontbonne Theatre. Using the brilliant, light-hearted translation by
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Avenue Q
It's rowdy and raucous, sexy and sophisticated. It promotes love, both free and C.O.D., and it tries to add at least one new word to the audience's vocabulary. It's imaginative and high-powered, preaches that kindness and tolerance are superior to hate, blends puppets, who look a little like Muppets but whose language and actions would
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Shirley Valentine
Dazzling. Simply dazzling. That's Teresa Doggett in–and as–"Shirley Valentine," which opened Thursday night as a production of Stray Dog Theatre at Tower Grove Abbey, and she takes the audience on a sea-change ride of human emotion as she searches for herself. Her triumphant performance in the one-woman comedy-drama by Willy Russell, directed delightfully by Edward
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The Girl on the Train
You could call it aimlessness, or disaffection, but I prefer apathy when looking at Jeanne, the heroine–or at least the lead actress–in "The Girl on the Train," a mostly interesting French film that includes a true Paris incident of six years ago, when a young woman told police she had been attacked by a group