Theater/Film Reviews
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The Sinker
"The Sinker," a new play by Jami Brandli, produced by Hot City Theatre, opened its premiere run at the Kranzberg Arts Center last night. The young playwright made an unfortunate choice of title, though the play does involve someone who is unable to swim. A really mean critic easily could have chortled, "Little Billy wasn't
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Babies
Just in time for Mother's Day, heee-res "Babies"!! Put the DVD on the gift list for a new Mom or an older one. Thomas Balmes' film, a fixating documentary, will teach her one key thing: The baby will grow up, will be happy and healthy, will learn to cope with the world. Balmes and some
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The Secret of Kells
"The Secret of Kells," which sneaked under the radar to gain an Academy Award nomination for animation, didn't win, but it's one of the most beautiful animated films I've ever seen. Directed by the Irish artist, Tomm Moore, it was put together by artists in Belgium, Hungary, Brazil and France, and it's a slight twist
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Mid-August Lunch
Gianni Di Gregorio really has bitten off a large mouthful in "Mid-August Lunch," a light, frothy tale with an uncommonly hard backbone. He's the writer and director, and the leading actor, and he is trying to deal with four very elderly women, all non-actors, one portraying his 93-year-old mother, with whom he shares an apartment.
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Tartuffe
The play may be almost 350 years old, but "Tartuffe" is as contemporary as this morning's news, and as a classic play, it receives a proper classic treatment at the hands of Deanna Jent and the Mustard Seed Theatre. The play continues through next weekend at the Fontbonne Theatre. Using the brilliant, light-hearted translation by
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Avenue Q
It's rowdy and raucous, sexy and sophisticated. It promotes love, both free and C.O.D., and it tries to add at least one new word to the audience's vocabulary. It's imaginative and high-powered, preaches that kindness and tolerance are superior to hate, blends puppets, who look a little like Muppets but whose language and actions would
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The Girl on the Train
You could call it aimlessness, or disaffection, but I prefer apathy when looking at Jeanne, the heroine–or at least the lead actress–in "The Girl on the Train," a mostly interesting French film that includes a true Paris incident of six years ago, when a young woman told police she had been attacked by a group
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The Cartel
Many people think that the films of Michael Moore swing too far to the left in their political and social thinking. Bob Bowdon takes us in a diametrically opposite direction in "The Cartel," which opens here today. This film is a right-wing, libertarian diatribe against public schools and for charter schools, using New Jersey to
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Karen Akers: Akers Sings Porter
Cool weather outside, cool singing inside. Karen Akers, tall and slender, with handsome cheekbones and a voice that both purred like a chorus of kittens and snapped like the jaws of a tiger, brought the clever, convoluted lyrics of Cole Porter to the Kranzberg Art Center Wednesday night and held them up to be