In the Oscar derby for Best Actor, is it better to die or to grieve? Clive Owen opts for the latter route in this strained, sentimental adaptation of a memoir by widowed English journalist Simon Carr. His 2001 book—boozy, breezy and thoroughly unsystematic—was a precursor to the new laissez-faire parenting…
Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel gives us Belle Époque Coco, opening in 1893 with a grim scene of the 10-year-old waif and her sister unceremoniously dumped at an orphanage and ending around World War I, a few years before the Chanel empire is launched. Jan Kounen’s moldy Coco Chanel &…
In 1941, with financial woes mounting and an animators’ strike making his studio anything but the happiest place on earth, Walt Disney took President Franklin D. Roosevelt up on the offer to be a cultural ambassador to Latin America. For the United States, it was a chance to woo potential…
Ostensibly, Free Style is one of those uplifting family movies built around a niche sport à la 1993’s rollerblading cash-in Airborne, with an underdog realizing dreams against the odds. Veteran family fare hack William Dear (Harry and the Hendersons!) does a decent job of fetishizing motocross, with motorcycles splattering dirt all over…
Not until the second act of the musical Grey Gardens, now playing in a rather splendid production at WaterTower Theatre, do we see the Edith Bouvier Beales whom we know from the Maysles brothers’ 1975 documentary. The images we have of Big and Little Edie, as they were known, are…
The Invention of Lying’s plot hook sounds like a pile-up of Jim Carrey-Tom Shadyac concept comedies. The assumption is that there isn’t much crossover between the Liar, Liar and Ricky Gervais fanbases. Gervais’ fuzzy parable exists in an alternate universe where nobody has made a word for “truth” because nobody…
The ushers at a packed screening of Michael Moore’s latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, came proudly decked out in T-shirts bearing slogans like “Make Love, Not Capitalism” and “Capitalism, We Have a Problem.” The shirts and the movie are brought to you by those filthy Reds: Overture Films, which…
Those high school misfits who sing and dance their way to higher self-esteem in the new TV series Glee could be the older siblings of the six middle-school oddballs who compete for the trophy in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Now playing in a B-plus production at Theatre…
Three hours of nonstop shopping, eating and drinking sounds like a great night out–but add in a trolley shuttle and it’s near perfect. A shopper gets tired hauling around all those bags, you know. Breathe in the rarefied air normally reserved for interior designers tonight at the 11th annual Slocum…
When you hear of a theater company that emphasizes plays “by, for and about women,” you probably imagine something a little like the Hallmark Channel or the Lifetime Movie Network onstage. If your tastes lean more toward the family-friendly former network, then stay away, but if you want a more…
If only Dustin Diamond had chosen the path taken by Jaleel White. Both ’90s child stars were hopelessly typecast as endearing nerds thanks to the success of their respective sitcoms, Saved by the Bell and Family Matters. But while White declared that he’d rather take a bullet than play Urkel…
I have a great mom, but I was always jealous of J.J. Evans, the character played by Jimmie Walker on Good Times. He had Florida Evans, and there was no finer mom. If you were bad, Florida would tell you exactly what you did wrong and how you were going…
Every family has dirty laundry and dark secrets. Siblings pull hair, throw punches and argue over who used up all the shampoo. Even the Huxtables had their fair share of mistakes and fights. The eldest daughter, Sondra, didn’t appear until halfway through the first season. Maybe she was the one…
British contemporary artist Marc QuinnMarc Quinn, for which they partnered with the Rachofsky Collection. This collection isn’t for the faint of heart or for those with a traditional mindset of what art is or is made of. But then, in these works (which span from 1998 to present) Quinn examines…
The last circus I went to was not much of a circus at all. Whoever decided throwing laser lights, near naked bimbos and gruesome tricks under a striped tent equaled circus…well, he or she never saw the real thing. When I go to the big tent, I want the real…
If you weren’t required to read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird at some point in your childhood education, let’s hope you’ve at least seen a glimpse of the 1962 film version, starring the late, great Gregory Peck and a very baby-faced Robert Duvall. But alas, if you’ve got no…
With the weather finally cooling off, outdoor exercise is possible again without worrying about a heat stroke. Every year, people have the chance to choose from hundreds of walkathons, but how many allow dogs to participate also? The 19th annual AIDS LifeWalk and LifeBark is back to benefit HIV/AIDS prevention…
It’s probably counterintuitive to an adult, especially a non-parent, but if you’re having trouble marketing something to kids, try making it gross. Of course, this approach works with toys. The mere mention of Garbage Pail Kids triggers instant nostalgia for ’80s babies, and kids today love Horror Balls, which are…
The town of Thurber has a knack for rising from the ashes. Originally built as a company coal mining town, it became a hub for brick factories in the late 19th century. Thurber peaked at 10,000 residents, claiming to be the largest town between Fort Worth and El Paso. In…
Quite frequently I am at a party with food, cocktails and music and think to myself, “This party is missing something. Something very big and very important.” So, I go through the checklist: food, check; cocktails, check; music, check; zoo animals…and then it hits me. That’s it: This party is…
Put your Clue game board back in the closet and embark on a new mystery. Imagine playing Clue in real life, with Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Elvis, Fran Drescher, Rocky Balboa, Lt. Columbo and Sherlock Holmes! The Celebrity Mystery Theater, as seen in Las Vegas and New York, is coming to…
With very few exceptions (including The Jonas Brothers, Vanilla Ice and speed metal) I will pretty much go to any live show. To me, a good concert has little to do with my musical taste and more to do with actually seeing an artist at work–it’s not much different than…
