Ann Lemons Pollack
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Amigos Cantina
Kirkwood, with its nice old houses and a bustling downtown populated largely by locally owned businesses, is especially appealing at this time of year, when it feels like one of those New England suburbs that decorate the front of a Christmas card. One expects to see a parcel-loaded Barbara Stanwyck bump into S.Z. (Cuddles)
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St. Louis Critics Choices
There must be something about the end of the year that makes people — grown-up people — get into a list-making mode. Perhaps it's a behavior left over from childhood, when lists were made for Santa Claus. But people who write, whether for newspapers, the electronic media or the internet, are busy making lists.
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An O. Henry Christmas
William Sidney Porter, generally known as O. Henry before the candy bar was created, may have been this country's finest short-story writer. He wrote in the early days of the last century for dozens of magazines. Two of his best-known tales have been adapted, with music, and put together as "An O. Henry Christmas,"
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Avatar
We have only a fortnight before 2009 comes to an end, and it took us all this time for a truly execrable movie, the worst of the year, to hit local screens. But "Avatar" opens today as the latest piece of too-long, too-dull, too-violent claptrap to come from the imagination of James Cameron, and
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Flame and Citron
Throughout history, conquered nations have fought back against their oppressors. Guerrilla fighters, operating in small groups, have used murder, arson and other tactics — criminal in times of peace — to disrupt and harass the occupying forces. The Danes, like the French, the Dutch and others, put as much pressure as possible on the German
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Eleven Madison Park, New York
Madison Square park is about 15 blocks from Madison Square Garden, the sports arena/convention hall on top of what is still called, with complete lack of logic, Penn Station, though the Penn Central railroad line has gone the way of dial phones. The park is formed where Broadway crosses Fifth Avenue, and at one corner,
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White Christmas
There are several ways to look at "Irving Berlin's White Christmas," which opened a two-week run at the Fox Theatre last night: 1–It's a heart-warming nostalgic look back to the days of World War II, when war was a good thing; it features Irving Berlin's songs, almost always a joy; it has good dancing;
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Invictus
The title is a dead giveaway: "Invictus," which opens today, will be a simplistic, but highly dramatic movie, like practically all movies that bear Clint Eastwood's fingerprints. It will show a world where there is a wide chasm between good people and evil people, and the good people will win, but the evil people
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Lemongrass
A couple of summers back, we took a stalk of lemongrass we’d bought at a grocery store, stuck it in some soil in a large pot and set it outside. In our hot, humid weather, it thrived, and left us with a potful of long, gracefully sweeping leaves, and a mass of root that had
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A Man for All Seasons
When King Henry VIII of England fell for Anne Boleyn in 1526, it began a romance that turned Europe upside down. Henry already was married to Catherine (or Katherine) of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. About three years later,Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared the Henry-Catherine marriage null and