5 Films to See This Week: "54,""The Apu Trilogy," and More
“54” (Director’s Cut), Film Society of Lincoln Center, June 23Mark Christopher’s 1998 dance-floor epic about the famed club known for its even more famed door policy arrives via an extended cut...
View ArticleWhy Does the Restoration of “The Third Man” Look Weird?
This is probably not much of a secret, but I’m going to spill the beans anyway: it’s becoming more and more infrequent to actually watch something projected from celluloid. The term “film” is still...
View Article“Downtown 81” and the Mythologizing of Jean-Michel Basquiat
The hook for watching “Downtown 81,” and the only reason it exists today, is the presence of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The artist, who passed away in 1988, has achieved ever-growing levels of success...
View Article“Bombshell” is Tempting Fate on Move to Broadway
The producers of “Bombshell,” which was just announced as heading into development as a Broadway musical, are tempting fate. Not only are the first four letters like a red flag to wave in front of...
View ArticleMatías Piñeiro’s Transmutes Shakespeare in “Princess of France”
“‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ is not the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays,” the poet and critic W.H. Auden remarked in a lecture on Shakespeare in 1946, “but it is one of the most perfect.”The same could be...
View ArticlePerforming Arts Weekend Picks: June 26-28
The weekend has arrived. Are you looking for something to do with your friends? Is you’re family in town? Maybe you’re just bored and need to get out of your apartment? Let ARTINFO help you out. Below,...
View ArticleBroadway's Long History with Marriage Equality
The Tony-winning Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” concluded with a wedding in a hospital room between the protagonist Ned Weeks and his closeted lover, Felix, then dying of AIDS....
View Article“Amazing Grace”: The President, the Song, and the Broadway Musical
On June 26, when President Barack Obama launched into a seemingly impromptu and imperfect rendition of “Amazing Grace” during his eulogy of the Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, it made headlines as one...
View Article5 Films to See This Week: “Young Mr. Lincoln,” “Amy,” and More
“The Prisoner of Shark Island,” “Young Mr. Lincoln,” Museum of the Moving Image, July 3-5One of the most exciting film events of the summer is the Museum of the Moving Image’s not quite complete...
View ArticleRemembering Ornette Coleman at Riverside Church
It’s hard to describe how it feels to stand at the podium of Riverside Church, to look down at a coffin that holds Ornette Coleman’s body, and to look out at a large crowd including Yoko Ono, Sonny...
View ArticleReview: Bare Chests, Breasts, and Boos in the Royal Opera’s “Guillaume Tell”
It has been said that a musical snob is someone who can listen to Rossini’s “William Tell” overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. At the Royal Opera’s new staging of the 1829 opera, sung in French...
View ArticleThe Ballad of “Difficult Women”: “Amy” and “What Happened Miss Simone?”
Toward the end of “Amy,” a new documentary about the singer Amy Winehouse in theaters July 2, we witness what many people in her life considered one of her lowest professional points. In front of...
View ArticleNew Conductors Announced for Berliner Philharmoniker and the Bayreuth Festival
“I have admired Kirill Petrenko for years, and I am delighted that he will be my successor with this wonderful orchestra. I congratulate the Philharmoniker on making such a forward looking decision.”...
View ArticleLes Blank’s Rock-Doc “A Poem is a Naked Person” Finally Arrives
When Les Blank died in 2013, he left behind one of the most respected bodies of work in documentary film. Best known for “Burden of Dreams” (1982), his documentary about the making of Werner Herzog’s...
View ArticleHot Ticket Alert! “On Your Feet!” Will Apparently Have You, Yes, On Your Feet
The exclamation point at the end of “On Your Feet!” appears to be deserved, at least according to the Chicago theater critics who welcomed the new bio-musical about pop superstar Gloria Estefan with...
View ArticleThe Intimacy of Bikers in Debra Granik’s “Stray Dog”
Debra Granik doesn’t mind doing interviews. When I sat down with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker (“Winter’s Bone”), I was just one of many people that afternoon asking her about her new documentary,...
View ArticlePREVIEW: Foo Fighters to Soldier on Alongside Rock Heavyweights at Fuji Rock
Fans of Glastonbury who missed out on seeing headliners the Foo Fighters perform following lead singer Dave Grohl’s leg break at a show in Sweden last month may have a reprieve. If they are prepared to...
View Article“Shakespeare in Love”: Jewel in the Crown at Stratford Festival
The stage adaptation of the 1998 Oscar-winning film “Shakespeare in Love” will have its North American premiere at Ontario’s Stratford Festival next summer. The news invited speculation that its...
View ArticleTop 5 Theater Shows to See in the UK This July
July is a great month to be in the midlands. Actor Henry Goodman and director Trevor Nunn are teaming up for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new production of Ben Jonson’s satire “Volpone.” There is...
View ArticleTop 5 Theater Shows to See in France This July
This month France plays host to a wide array of summer performing arts festivals including the Les Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon, of Paris’s annual Festival Quartier d’Été, and the Festival Toulouse...
View Article