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4 articles
Shorties: Bashing Cruz, Singing Lulu, and Woofing Canines
12 November 2009 8:30 PM, PST
Finally, a celluloid gift for all scholars in the midst of writing a thesis on Pedro Almodóvar. However, for the rest of us who might have a less academic bent, Pedro’s latest offering is an unending, un-suspenseful, increasingly irritating, yet well-acted paean to Hollywood of the '50s, filmmaking in general, passion, and jealousy, all topics he’s handled with much more wit and panache in the past.
Here, blind screenwriter Mateo Blanco (Lluis Homar), who uses the pseudonym Harry Caine, is visited by a young man with an idea for a script about a young homosexual who doesn’t get along with his father.
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- Brandon Judell
A Character As Reliable As the Internet
12 November 2009 12:00 PM, PST
Undiscovered Gyrl
by Allison Burnett (Vintage)
The gimmick of e-mail novels was spawned about five minutes after the birth of e-mail itself. Blog novels? Every other new novelist these days is a blogger, or birthed their idea on a blog. Which is why Allison Burnett's new book, Undiscovered Gyrl, is actually so welcome. It doesn't use blogging as a gimmick, it uses it as a setting. Like London to Dickens, or the Mississippi River to Twain, that vague "place" we all inhabit known as cyberspace is where this book lives.
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- Ken Krimstein
This Bird Has Flown
11 November 2009 8:13 AM, PST
I saw the Roundabout Theatre Company’s current revival of Bye Bye Birdie before the mostly negative reviews were published. Yet even then word was out, via the internet chat boards, that this was a very problematic production. So I found myself wondering as I walked into the newly renovated Henry Miller's Theatre whether this production could possibly be as bad as some of the scathing online comments would indicate. Well, after seeing the revival, I would say that this Birdie is not quite the total misfire that some have portrayed. But unfortunately it was not the winning production it should have been, just a modestly entertaining show. Because of the strength of the material itself, there are some charming moments, but overall it is a revival undermined by major casting and directorial issues.
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- James Miller
Bones and All
10 November 2009 7:19 AM, PST
Dem Bones, Dem Bones is the catchy title -- derived from a traditional children's song -- for a diverse group show in which all the artists reference bones in some manner. The curator, Lydia Viscardi, has put together a stimulating exhibit which she subtitles The Expansive Theme of Mortality from the Sobering to the Celebratory, which covers it all. Six artists are featured with several works each, and at least thirty more are represented by one or two pieces.
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- MargaretRoleke
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