Theater/Film Reviews
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Don Giovanni
Ripped from the headlines. . . . A man who sees himself as God's gift to women, licentious and lascivious, using physical force when more traditional tactics of seduction don't work. A man who's never been punished–even rebuked–for his attitude and actions toward women. A man who keeps track of his conquests as if he
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Sons of Perdition
Warren Jeffs was in the news in recent years, on trial over raping and marrying off a 14-year-old girl. Jeffs, now in prison for his part in the crimes, was the leader of the FLDS, or Fundamental Latter Day Saints, a breakaway group that annointed him as the supreme leader, approving polygamy, use of women
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Putty Hill
There are interesting comparisons to be made between “Sons of Perdition,” reviewed above, and “Putty Hill,” a film about slackers and druggies living in a Baltimore neighborhood, which also opens today. Both deal with disaffected American young people, uneducated and sometimes naive, but also depressed, looking for a way out and almost ready to be
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Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichart's film career is a rather brief one, but she has a lovely view from the director's chair. Her "Wendy and Lucy" a few years ago, was a rich, sensitive story about two women struggling to survive. "Meek's Cutoff," scheduled to open today, is a Western, but certainly not a traditional Western, and while
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Hesher
While good movies come and go, bad movies come and come and keep coming–though perhaps they have reached their nadir with "Hesher," opening here today without the shadow of a single thing to recommend it. Hesher, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt with skanky hair, lots of self-inflicted crude and ugly tattoos and a personality that is
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Dark Matters
Would you buy milk from a guy who's unshorn and unshaven, red-eyed from lack of sleep, and used to live in Washington, D.C.? That's the least of the problems that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa presents in "Dark Matters," which opened last night in a Stray Dog Theatre production at Tower Grove Abbey, to run through May 21.
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In A Better World
Is an-eye-for-an-eye the right way to live? Is turning the other cheek a correct way to build relationships? Or do we just stagger through life, blind and slap-happy, in a search for proper behavior? "In a Better World," the Danish movie that won the Academy Award for best foreign-languge film and which opens here today,
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White Irish
If "White Irish Drinkers" is based, at least in part, on the boyhood of writer-director John Gray, it certainly was a miserable childhood. But it should have been a better movie. Unfortunately, we get awful cliches and sentimental claptrap. Dad beats Mom and bullies his children. Mom defends Dad ("I married him for better and
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Intelligent Life
Robin believes in the existence of extra-terrestrials. She apparently also believes in the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Tinker Bell, or so one would assume after watching and listening to her in "Intelligent Life," a play whose action denies its title, or else pokes fun at it. It opened over the weekend
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Agnes of God
A young nun is found in her convent room. She is bleeding, apparently as the result of giving birth. A dead infant is found in a wastebasket. The nun says she does not remember anything about a sexual experience, a pregnancy, the birth, the death. A court calls in a psychiatrist to determine her sanity