Ann Lemons Pollack
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Taquerias La Pasadita and La Monarca
A very good thing about St. Louis in the 21st century is that it's becoming easier and easier to find Mexican food that is not the hamburger-based, big bucks-advertising-budget stuff from chains. And we've come across two small, modest neighborhood places that offer charming, fresh food. Both style themselves taquerias, which makes them the
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Many of the small theater companies in the city look for a niche in which they can define themselves, get some distance from their rivals and partners in the theater community. Muddy Waters, which lives in the Kranzberg Arts Center at Grand and Olive, for decades the Times Square corner of St. Louis, does
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Five Minutes of Heaven
Alistair Little, a Protestant, was 17 years old in 1975 when he stood on a street in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, and fired a pistol through a flat window, killing 19-year-old Jim Griffin, a Catholic. Joe Griffin, his younger brother, watched Little. That's how "Five Minutes of Heaven," a taut, gripping film, based on the
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Coco Before Chanel
Audrey Tatou is perfect as the gamin who was Gabrielle Chanel before she became Coco, perhaps the ultimate French designer-heroine, the woman who made the Little Black Dress as the perfect and necessary garment for every woman's closet. "Coco Before Chanel" is Anne Fontaine's homage to Chanel, a look at her early years, from
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Men Who Stare at Goats
The military mind lends itself perfectly to satire. Actually, it's not a loan but an outright gift to writers. Think "Wag the Dog," or "Catch-22," or the all-time best, "Dr. Strangelove." Now it's "Men Who Stare at Goats," a funny, highly entertaining movie about the wacky goings-on among a group of soldiers being trained
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Steve Ross
When Steve Ross, who epitomizes meticulous, sits at a piano with the collar of his dinner jacket folded improperly, it's a moment of real shock. Ross, who has been a cabaret star more than 40 years, is a pianist and singer who calls forth Noel Coward and Cole Porter, glittering martini glasses and glamorous
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New Orleans: The Old Coffee Pot
Like many cities where leisure is an art, New Orleans is capable of lifting breakfast to a higher standard. Enough so, in fact, that we think it wasteful to stay at a place that includes breakfast in the price of a room. Coffee, maybe, before setting foot on the pavement, but to forego the
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Camellia Grill, New Orleans
After Katrina, the restaurant business in New Orleans was closely watched by outsiders as a sign of things returning to – well, the new normal. Surprisingly, the opening, but not until last spring, that provided us with cheer-up-we're-getting-there was not one of the great old Quarter divas or an out-of-the-way seafood dive. It was the
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Fiddler on the Roof
The cast is only 11 strong. The orchestra is a single piano, with a violin for occasional poignant moments. The Russian village of Anatevka is represented by a table, an antique steamer trunk and a few chairs. And as Motel the Tailor sings, "Out of a simple lump of clay, God has made a
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Secret Order
The plot is not quite ripped from the headlines because the play is more than seven years old, but with a Washington University physician and professor fired recently because of some similar ethical lapses, "Secret Order," which opened last night at the Rep Studio, shines a light on some shadows that have dimmed many