Theater/Film Reviews
-
Doubt
A new theater company. A powerful, award-winning play. A fine cast in good form. Strong direction. Those parts should add up to a successful evening of theater, and they do, in the debut of Dramatic License Productions, which opened "Doubt" in splendid style last night at the Kranzberg Theatre in Grand Center. It will run
-
Revanche
With a policeman and a prostitute in prominent roles, one would anticipate that sex and violence would dominate "Revanche," an Austrian Oscar candidate for Best Foreign Language film that opens today. But before we engage in any games of conclusion-jumping, let’s look a little more deeply into the excellent film written and directed by Gotz
-
Valentino: The Last Emperor
He was born Valentino Garavani, but from the time he became a first-line fashion designer, among the most haute of the haute couture, he was known solely by his first name, as if he were a soccer star or a rapper. "Valentino: The Last Emperor," which opens today, is a fascinating look into his life
-
(500) Days of Summer
Zooey Deschanel is one of my favorite actresses. She’s pretty, in a laid-back way that presents a charming, blue-eyed sexiness. She, and her co-star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, are enough to make a success out of a rather zany, often-confusing love story, "(500) Days of Summer." This is not a symptom of global warming, but the tale
-
The Hurt Locker
Politics get in the way when movies about war reflect those that are real – and unpopular. In the World War II days, and even during the Cold War, enemies were enemies and movie fans bought tickets to see them vanquished. But in Vietnam, and in the Middle East, where the wars are not very
-
Shadowland
It’s rather dishonest, or else dumb, for Wyatt Weed, who wrote and directed, and therefore cannot blame anyone else, to name his sleazy, violent little movie, "Shadowland," when 16 years ago, the esteemed English director, Richard Attenborough, used Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger in the almost-identically named "Shadowlands," a sort-of biography of Irish-English author C.
-
The Drowsy Chaperone
Light-hearted, tuneful and no more substantial than a cumulus cloud, the Stages St. Louis production of "The Drowsy Chaperone" offers a delightful evening of entertainment while it provides both those who love musical theater and those who hate it with enough additional cement to harden their positions for eternity. It runs through Aug. 16 at
-
Collected Stories
Watching a relationship grow can bring humor, or sadness, or passion, or indifference, and watching Ruth and Lisa run the six-year emotional marathon that is Donald Margulies’s "Collected Stories" takes us through a similar gantlet as Nancy Lewis and Megan Maguire wield a collection of verbal whips and truncheons that we can neither evade nor
-
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
And there’s no spell-check to help out. . . . When the bell tolls at stage left, it tolls for thee, the speller who mis-spelled, and sends a miserable soul to Hell, or at least off the stage and out of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," a charming evening of song, wit and
-
Departures
Director Yojiro Takita gets a little mawkish toward the end, and he allows "Departures" to be about 30 minutes longer than necessary, but the Japanese tale, which won an Oscar for best foreign language film, is always beautiful, often breath-taking, mostly fascinating in the way people approach death. Masahiro Motoki, calm and handsome, is Daigo,