After chronicling the life of Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi in her last book, Susan Vreeland continues her welcome biographical specialty in underappreciated women artists in her new novel, Forest Lover. This time around, her subject is turn-of-the-century painter Emily Carr, who defied her strict Victorian family to live among the Indians of then-isolated Vancouver Island. … Read more
You’ve heard of China’s last emperor, the boy king toppled from the throne by the rise of Mao. Now, meet his mother, the last empress. Becoming Madame Mao and Red Azalea author Min returns with another wonderfully descriptive work, the first in an eventual trilogy about Tzu Hsi, China’s longest-reigning female ruler. Min aims to … Read more
Olson’s debut novel Welcome to My Planet is one of our happy memories of the year 2000, and we’re pleased to report that the local heroine hooks us again with her followup, a sequel starring Planet’s semi-fictionalized version of Olson herself. A few more years down the road, Olson is now thirtysomething and still single … Read more
During these contentious weeks when football and baseball fans argue over the recent picks for their sports halls of fame, it is nice to know that that there are no arguments in the blood sport called Hollywood, at least in the all-important question of “who’s the worst director ever?” Many have tried and failed spectatularly, … Read more
George Cukor’s all-singing movie version of George Bernard Shaw’s much more nuanced Pygmalion was a smash success, winning eight Oscars (including 1965’s Best Picture), and one of the most commercially successful musicals ever made. It’s still a remarkable piece of entertainment, though it seems fairly dated forty years down the road. The costuming is terrific, … Read more
Before he directed low-budget B-movies, Sam Fuller was both a hard-nosed newspaper reporter and a World War Two combat infantryman. So it’s no wonder that his noir films were especially gritty and no-nonsense examples of the form. Pickup on South Street is one of his finest, a grim and multilayered tale of Red Scare politics … Read more
The sixties were tumultuous enough here in America, but it was nothing compared to the institutionalized insanity of China’s Cultural Revolution. One survivor, interviewed in this compelling and chilling documentary, calls it “an age ruled by the poet and the executioner. The poet scattered roses everywhere, while the executioner cast a long shadow of terror.” … Read more
We’ve been saying for years now that the future of pop music is the Flaming Lips, but that may have been only because Stereolab appeared to be on extended hiatus. True, they’re Eurotrash, whereas the Lips are all-American Okies. But like so many great rock bands from abroad, Stereolab had a special ear for traditional … Read more
It’s hard to know why these things happen, but this superhip French duo is more a living museum of genteel new wave than the bleeding edge of ambient electronica. Their chic debut of a few years ago, the moogy Moon Safari, rode the crest of a kitsch wave at about the same time we started … Read more
After 2002’s phenomenal Come Away With Me, one might expect Norah Jones to be weighed down by the challenge of following up such a debut…especially with that load of Grammys! But Jones claims that was never a concern of hers, and she describes the new album rather as a “snapshot” of where she is in … Read more