Theater/Film Reviews
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Three Men and a Baby…Grand
The Great American Songbook, the mine that cabaret singers dig for the music that causes fingers to snap and toes to tap, eyes to mist and smiles to widen, is on display at the Kranzberg Arts Center as Cabaret St. Louis opened its season last night. "Three Men and a Baby…Grand" is the opening show,
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Oedipus King
As usual, the Greeks did it first. "Oedipus King," is filled with sex and violence, soothsayers and astrologers, the honest and the dishonest, the faithful and the unfaithful; royalty and commoners. And it opened in Greece some 2500 years ago. It's also playing here right now, in a rich, powerful, emotionally charged production by Upstream
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November
“Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight!” So sang (in a manner of speaking) Zero Mostel in the opening number of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” David Mamet must have been listening.” “November,” a raucous comedy, littered with Mamet’s usual overuse of four-letter Anglo-Saxon verbs, opened last night at the Gaslight Theater in
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It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Making comedies involving people in a psychiatric ward is tricky stuff. Political correctness rears its ugly head. So does good taste. "It's Kind of a Funny Story," which opened yesterday walks the narrow line with generally good balance, and while the movie hits some dead spots here and there, it's mostly successful. Anna Boden and
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Never Let Me Go
It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb: The more idyllic the setting, the more horrifying the things happening behind the scenes. As an example, I present "Never Let Me Go," which opened yesterday. Much of it is set in the English countryside, at a boarding school that emulates what so many
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Journey to Mecca
The size and scope of the IMAX camera is perfect for taking us to unfamiliar places, and "Journey to Mecca," which opened yesterday at the St. Louis Science Center, is an ideal subject, following the 5000-mile, 18-month solo journey of a 14th-century Muslim student, Ibn Battuta. More than 700 years ago, at the age of
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My Name Is Asher Lev
The struggle between parents and children, a battle fought for many reasons and on many levels, is a traumatic enough experience. Down deep, both sides know the best they can hope for is a draw. When religion becomes another front in the war, everyone’s doom is sealed. And that’s the case in “My Name Is
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Mademoiselle Chambon
A truly lovely love story–or non-love story–is "Mademoiselle Chambon," a French offering that begins today. Shot in a small town in the French countryside, it looks at relationships in the gentle, yet accurate manner that often seems to have been patented by French filmmakers. Jean (Vincent Lindon) and AnneMarie (Aure Atika) are a blue-collar couple.
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Waiting for “Superman”
A thinly disguised advertisement for the charter school movement, "Waiting for 'Superman,'" which opens here today, blames teachers –and especially their unions–for most of the problems in American elementary and middle-school education and sings the praises of Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee. Canada has an impressive record in helping Harlem youngsters, but Rhee's fulminating reign
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Soul Kitchen
"Soul Kitchen" is a Greek-German comedy set in motion when a customer at a fancy restaurant complains that his gazpacho is cold and the chef is fired when he refuses to heat it. Filled with slapstick and a cast of sympathetic and comical people, it's too long and not quite funny enough, but there are