Theater/Film Reviews
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Carol Schmidt
Carol Schmidt and friends played the Kranzberg Center last night in what she called a cabaret performance, but which felt more like an evening at someone's home, pickin' and cluckin' and having a high old time. At least the musicians did, and they will repeat tonight. Schmidt and Michele Isam, part of the late, lamented
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Ruined
Lynn Nottage's language is both simple and brutal, but the two words, individually, deliver a far greater impact than just saying "brutally simple." Her play, "Ruined," now at the Grandel Theatre in a powerful production by the Black Rep, is a keening, passionate scream at the world to awaken those who can save women from
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Cedar Rapids
It’s rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar. It’s also funny, even hilarious if you like rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar humor. “Cedar Rapids,” opening today, brings back memories of the films of people like Preston Sturges, though the language has progressed (or regressed?) nearly70 years. Despite that, and its often-casual attitude toward sexual fidelity, director Miguel
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Sirens
Sirens don’t always precede fire engines. Once upon a time, according to Greek and Roman story-tellers, they were seductive damsels whose singing was more magnetic than that of Justin Bieber and Frank Sinatra combined. Their songs caused ships to crash into islands, dooming sailors to drown in the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
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Round and Round the Garden
With a weekend of gloom, doom and depraved love stories covering local stages like a blanket of blizzard, “Round and Round the Garden,” strong on flowers, foolishness and the wit of Alan Ayckbourn, brought to the Black Cat Theatre on Sunday the same feeling that the sunshine and balmy temperatures provided for the rest of
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Closer
The word "closer" has different meanings, depending on the pronunciation of the word: A hard "s" can refer to someone who wraps up baseball games, or who ends things, like closing a deal on a car. A soft one usually deals with physical closeness in terms of another person, whether actual or emotional. The play
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Macbeth
If Chris Koster, Missouri's attorney-general, thought he'd start a quiet weekend in his home town by stopping in at the Rep for an evening of theater, he picked the wrong night. The Rep's raucous, highly physical, blood-soaked production of "Macbeth" looked just like a Tuesday session of the state legislature. Paul Mason Barnes, who directed
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Barney’s Version
Barney Panofsky is nothing if not vitally alive. The hero of “Barney’s Version,” which opens today, is a man of large appetites, and of great ability to satisfy them. Paul Giamatti, flanked by Dustin Hoffman pere and fils as his father and son, offers a portrayal in which he is a whirlwind, and very funny,
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Oscar-Nominated Shorts
Of the hundreds of movie and theater reviews I write in a year, these films, the short subjects nominated for Academy Awards may bring me the most pleasure. Shorts take me back to my boyhood, when they always were part of the weekend matinees I attended at the last-run neighborhood houses. They're short (none of
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You Wont Miss Me
Maybe I’m showing my age, but another movie about disaffected, unhappy, dysfunctional young people is just boring and adds nothing to the genre. Even if it was written by, and stars, Stella Schnabel, daughter of famous artist Julian. The misspelling of the title of “You Wont Miss Me” seems to be just another example of