Articles
6207 results
Page 338
Philadelphia Orchestra's new season
The blessings of austerity: A month of (mostly) new faces
The opening programs of the Philadelphia Orchestra's new season indicate it can still generate artistic excitement even while it cuts costs.
Articles
4 minute read
Andrei Tarkovsky's "Nostalghia'
Exiles without borders, or: You can't go home again
On the surface, Andrei Tarkovsky's penultimate film is the brooding story of a Russian poet at loose ends in Italy. More essentially it portrays a modern world estranged from itself. Tarkovsky's style requires patience, but the rewards are considerable.
Articles
6 minute read
Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine' (1st review)
Woody Allen does Tennessee Williams
I was startled by how closely Woody Allen's Jasmine resembles Tennessee Williams's Blanche DuBois. I've never seen a Woody Allen character disintegrate before our very eyes with the blinding intensity of Cate Blanchett's Jasmine.
Articles
5 minute read
Curtis Institute's Sejong Music Festival
Music? In the summer? In Philadelphia?
In the process of hosting a Korea-U.S. festival, Curtis Institute demonstrated, for the third time this summer, that Center City Philadelphia can too support summertime music events.
Articles
4 minute read
Mauckingbird's "Importance of Being Earnest'
Oscar Wilde gets the ‘post-gay' treatment
Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a Victorian comedy about men who lead double lives. The Mauckingbird Theatre Company's “post-gay” production overlooks Wilde's motivation for raising such a theme in the first place.
Articles
4 minute read
Kon Ichikawa's 'The Makioka Sisters'
Among the cherry blossoms: Bourgeois denial in Imperial Japan
In Philadelphia's August doldrums, International House's film series is one of the few cultural events available. Its presentation of Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters, based on Junichiro Tanizaki's classic novel, brilliantly invoked the mood and mores of imperial Japan before Pearl Harbor.
Articles
7 minute read
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The Washington Post's future: One hint
Thinking outside the box about the future of the Post
The recent sale of the Washington Post to Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, has unleashed a flood of speculation among the punditry. His latest gambit with authors of fiction books suggests that this innovative tycoon may do something totally unexpected with his new media property.
Articles
4 minute read
'The Trojan Women' in 21st-Century Greece
Calling Donald Rumsfeld, or: What war means
With The Trojan Women, Euripides may have written the most powerful anti-war play ever. It has lost none of its relevance: In the fine recent production in Athens, the parallels to the siege Greece is under today from predatory lenders were not far under the surface.
Articles
8 minute read
"Europa Report': The trouble with outer space films
How do you reason with a humanoid? (And other outer space movie challenges)
For space scientists, the ultimate question is: Does life exist in the vast reaches of the cosmos? But for the rest of us, an equally pressing question is: Will a truly intelligent and watchable film about space exploration ever be made?
Articles
6 minute read
Shakespeare Festival's "Two Noble Kinsmen'
The Bard's last gasp
Shakespeare's last play is rarely performed, and for good reason: The Bard was paying his dues and departing with a whimper when he wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen. Still, it's worth seeing, if only for its clues to the homosexuality of Shakespeare's patron, King James I.
Articles
4 minute read