Theater/Film Reviews
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Harvard Beats Yale
A tie in a football game, some gridiron wag once said, "is like kissing your sister." True in many situations, but when a filmmaker has the courage to use "beats" and a tie score in the same movie title, he obviously has something in mind. And Kevin Rafferty had something in mind with "Harvard Beats
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Tyson
With exceptions that don’t use all the fingers on a single hand, all professional boxers, and especially heavyweights, end up as pitiable examples of human beings, and people like James Toback take glee in watching them and listening to them, much in the way small boys tear legs off flies and watch them stagger.
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Fados
After many years, I’ve found a rule of thumb that really works with movies about music, musicians and musical groups: If you like the style of music, or the musician, you’ll greatly enjoy the movie. If you’re not a fan of the style, or the genre, stay home. "Fados," which opens today, is a Portuguese
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Il Re Pastore
Women portraying men and boys on stage is an old conceit, done at one time because "nice" women didn’t work on stage, done now in "Il Re Pastore," by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis for reasons known best by director Chas Rader-Shieber. The opera by a young Mozart (he was only 19) opened over
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Everything In The Garden
There’s a heavy dose of sardonic humor in the plays of Edward Albee. A lot of greed in his characters, too, and considerable casual denigration of minorities and others. It’s almost constant in "Everything in the Garden," his American adaptation of a play by English writer Giles Cooper. It opened over the weekend as a
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Circus Flora: “Medrano”
Nothing makes miracles like a circus. Grown men and women, mature and sober, shriek and bang their hands together, tense up with the same ooohs and aashs as their own children, when a clown does a pratfall or douses himself with paint, when a rider does handstands while a horse gallops around the ring, when
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Lemon Tree
Israelis and Palestinians have been battling for eons, and every step forward toward peace and understanding is undermined by a step backward toward war and misunderstanding. There is nothing so minimal that these feuding sides cannot struggle over it, even if it is something as small as a lemon grove farmed by a not-quite middle-aged
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Every Little Step
What a gimmick!! Here’s an ever-repeating story line, ready to go every few years from today to infinity, always with a new cast, always with new stories, always with the same, wonderful score and superb dancers. "Every Little Step," a documentary that opens today, tells the story of auditions for the 2006 revival of "A
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My Life In Ruins
No travel budget for this summer? Forced to abandon your plans for a trip to Greece? A possible solution is "My Life in Ruins," little more than a glorified travelogue, but with Nia Vardalos, probably the most famous Greek actor since Telly Savalas or Melina Mercouri, as an American teacher, now a down-on-her-luck, depressed tour
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Hangover
I’ve never had a hangover that I enjoyed, so why should I enjoy a movie called "The Hangover?" Besides, having had three weddings and not a single bachelor party (one of the more inane parts of pre-wedding debauchery), I hardly saw it as something with which I could easily identify. And yet, I liked the