Theater/Film Reviews
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Till We Have Faces
The myths of the Greeks and Romans, their stories of gods and goddesses, faith and infidelity, love and loss, have been influencing writers ever since. Right up to last night at the Fontbonne University theater. The ancient myths influenced C. S. Lewis, who wrote a novel, "Till We Have Faces," about Psyche. Lewis' book influenced
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Ralph Kalish as Branch Rickey
Writing and performing a one-person show usually begins as a labor of love. Had William Shakespeare been a critic, watching Ralph Kalish’s two-hour struggle to be Branch Rickey could have inspired him with the title, “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” The Rickey legends are repeated at length at the Gaslight Theatre; the show continues through Sunday, and
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Miral
"Miral" is as much propaganda statement as it is movie, and its focus on the dysfunctional relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is bound to create considerable controversy. The story of four Palestinian women over more than 60 years tends toward soap opera, and the viewpoint of director Julian Schnabel is strongly sympathetic to them, and
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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
"Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" wins this month's trophy as the longest–and perhaps oddest–name for a movie. It appeared here last fall as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival, but I did not get the opportunity to see it. Now that it has returned as part of the Webster University
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The Sons of Tennessee
The South long has known "bachelor uncles," "walkers," and other euphemisms for gay men who were part of families and social groups, but who remained closeted, even if their sexual preferences were known, if not discussed. "The Children of Tennessee Williams," a look at a half-century of gay participation in the New Orleans Mardi Gras
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Next to Normal
Diana's a modern American mom, modern enough one school-day morning at 6 a.m. to inform her teen-aged daughter, Natalie, that she's about to go upstairs to have sex. Nothing abnormal about the sex, it's with her husband, who is Natalie's dad, but the off-handed manner is a bit off-putting, though funny. Not necessarily normal, but
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Poetry
"Poetry," a South Korean movie that opens here today, is long, slow-starting, in Korean with subtitles. But despite these probable impediments to audiences, it's an amazing movie, sensitive, gripping, studious, mesmerizing. There are wondrous performances from a number of actors, especially Yun Jung-hee as Mija, a 66-year-old woman who lives with an angry, truculent, pain-in-the-neck
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Win Win
“Win Win” is the third film to be written and directed by Thomas McCarthy–and it’s his third good one. Maybe it’s not as touching as “The Station Agent” nor as winsome as “The Visitor,” but the New Jersey native now has made his home state look good twice in three appearances, and that’s a rather
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Hanna
When Maurice Chevalier sang "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," he was not thinking of Saoirse Ronan, the eponymous heroine of "Hanna," which opens here today. Chevalier was thinking of pink-and-white cuties in pigtails. Ronan, who is as drop-dead gorgeous as any of his coterie, would destroy him and a couple of dozen of them in
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The Death of Atahualpa
"Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings," said King Richard II, describing a common group activity in the court, in summer camp, at saloons, in theaters everywhere and upon the Kranzberg Arts Center stage, where "The Death of Atahualpa" opened over the weekend. The Upstream Theater production