Theater/Film Reviews
-
Lebanon
For those actively in it, war is no better than it ever was. It's dirty, tragic, scary, confusing and basically "hell," as General Sherman said. For film buffs, and fans of war movies, however, it's far better than it ever was. Advances in equipment, technical expertise and miniaturization, for example, make better movies possible. Take
-
Bran Nue Dae
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear–well, not quite an introduction to the Lone Ranger on radio, but almost a look back to the San Francisco summer of Love, complete with VW vans, hippies, head bands, beads, pot, sex and music. And original spelling, too. "Bran Nue Dae," fairly close phonetically to
-
Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine Public Enemy No. 1
Jacques Mesrine was a successful French bank robber in the 1960s and 70s, so successful that he was dubbed Public Enemy No. 1, the same title that John Dillinger, who earned a living in a similar manner, wore in the U. S. 30 years earlier. Vincent Cassel is just outstanding as Mesrine in two biographical
-
Heartbreaker
“My son the doctor” remains a proud way to talk about family. How about, “My son who earns a good living being hired by fathers to romance their daughters to destroy a relationship with someone they consider wrong for her.”? No? Well, “Heartbreaker,” the movie, a French comedy, is not so hot, either, the first
-
Master Class
Maria Callas spent most of her life over the top. A great singer with an ego to match, she personified the word “diva,” and her talent was enough to make her a star, a soprano of power and personality. She defined a number of roles. But at the same time, her offstage life was a
-
I’m Still Here
Maybe "I'm Still Here," is an elaborate hoax, aimed at bringing Joaquin Phoenix back to center stage, back to the limelight and the spotlight. Maybe it's a true, and very sad story where Phoenix decided to explain his life and (on one level, anyway) incipient death in a film directed by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck.
-
Everyone Else
Gitti and Chris are a handsome young German couple, vacationing in the Sardinian sun. They're in the rather early stages of a relationship, finding more enjoyment in each other's bodies than their minds, though that begins to change a little as writer-director Maren Ade's film moves along. Birgit Minichmayr is Gitti, Lars Eidinger her lover
-
Legends of Flight
Except for a few scenes depicting the grand old DC-3, there's nothing legendary about "Legends of Flight," the new IMAX movie that opens at the St. Louis Science Center today, offering a commercial-style advertising pitch for Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner," without discussing why the plane is several years late in coming off an assembly line. Mostly,
-
Shrek The Musical
Gaudy, sometimes slightly bawdy, colorful as Fourth of July fireworks and with a charmingly iconoclastic attitude toward the fairy tales that gave it birth, "Shrek the Musical" opened a two-week run at the Fox Theatre last night, with Eric Petersen, in the title role, following Kermit the Frog in discovering that it isn't easy being
-
Equus
It begins with a terrible moment in a stable, grows until the stable becomes a self-contained world where everything lives. From one point of view, God is fighting the Devil. From another, a psychiatrist is fighting a patient. From a third, a boy is fighting his father and also trying to understand a struggle between