Norah Labiner is in love with language. She writes in a great tidal wave of words, logophilia sometimes cresting into babble as she races to tell her story, then jumps back to pick up a detail dropped in the rush, then joyously forward again. Like her first novel, Our Sometime Sister , Miniatures is a … Read more
In his first memoir, All Over But the Shoutin’, Pulitzer-winning reporter Rick Bragg told of his mother’s triumphant struggle to raise three boys in the face of grinding poverty and an abusive, alcoholic husband. Ava’s Man , new to paperback, takes the story back a generation to chronicle his maternal grandfather, Charlie Bundrum, a carpenter … Read more
We’re pleased as punch that our friends over at The Loft and Utne Reader are in cahoots to produce this glossy new lit magazine, which premieres on the national newsstand at the end of the month. Actually, this nifty project secretly triangulates with Ruminator; Editor Bart Schneider was the man who put the Hungry Mind … Read more
Church, Bierstadt, Kensett. These were the superstars of their era, painters already a part of our budding national mythology from the early 19th century. The 10 men who authored the 90-plus paintings here did as much to create the American sense of self as nearly any writer or political leader of the day. What they … Read more
To mark its 50th anniversary, the Nature Conservancy commissioned a group of 12 diverse photographers to document areas which the Conservancy helps to protect and has deemed “The Last Great Places.” The show at the MMAA is a fine selection of about 50 pieces running concurrently to a larger exhibit also touring the country. Hope … Read more
Why is the Lagoon Cinema our favorite theater? Because of the popcorn? No, it’s because they show movies like Sex and Lucia. This is an adult film in both senses of the word. It’s got plenty of steamy sex scenes. But even with those scenes—believe us—it’s not for the American Pie crowd. Lucia is the … Read more
We hang our heads in shame for leading dear readers astray when we declared Death to Smoochy was Robin Williams’ triumphant escape from the touchy-feely pablum he starred in during most of the 90s. One reviewer declared that only an amazingly talented group of people could have made something that horrible. A month later, Williams’ … Read more
For a film festival with such a narrow focus, this weeklong exhibition of movies about music certainly covers a lot of ground. The third incarnation of “Sound Unseen” gathers more than three dozen films touching on reggae, punk, Islamic song, lesbian folk—well, you get the idea. The schedule’s especially packed with biographies, retrospectively cataloguing Sonic … Read more
Reservoir Dogs made him the hipsters’ darling, but it was 1994’s Pulp Fiction that, for better or worse, anointed Quentin Tarantino as The New Genius Who Will Change Moviemaking Forever. Nobody, of course, can stand up to that level of hype, and QT certainly later proved himself capable of graceless junk. (Exhibit A: Four Rooms.) … Read more
Jack Nicholson has certainly confirmed many times over his place as a master of the big screen. Who can forget his classic role as Jack Torrance in The Shining, or more recently his deft and hilarious portrayal of neurotic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets? Still, we think this is by far his … Read more