In this purposefully ridiculous sequel to his popular The Monster of Phantom Lake, Christopher R. Mihm offers yet another send-up of ’50s B-movies. This Ed Wood-like quality is achieved with grainy black-and-white images, a hambone cast, and special effects that look as though created from random objects found in the garage—which, in fact, is often … Read more
It takes guts for an established band to keep messing with fans’ expectations. BRMC began with the punkish scruff-and-fuzz of Jesus and Mary Chain, took a harder rock edge on the follow-up, totally corkscrewed into rootsy Americana ditties inlaid with gospel and blues on their third, and now charge again into blistering pop-rock on their … Read more
Critics have called him a nauseatingly romantic wuss, a badge-of-honor Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has worn through three Grammy nominations, six critically acclaimed albums, and a performance on Saturday Night Live. Everything this soft-spoken, melodic alt-rocker has touched in the ten years since he founded Death Cab, including his side project The … Read more
By commissioning five pieces of original music, each of which is to be accompanied by some form of electronic media, the Southern Theater is hitting upon a big trend in the contemporary composition business. As of late, composers of all stripes have sought collaborations with video and performance artists, thus adding an element of spectacle … Read more
Alexander is a throwback to the halcyon days of hard-bop battle royals, when a man could walk into a club with a tenor saxophone and blow the house down. Just thirty-eight, Alexander knows how to stoke a barn-burning solo until the patrons are hollering even before the climaxes. But he also burnishes his supple, muscular … Read more
This acclaimed comedy classic was made in 1962, given a brief American run in ’64, and then, for forty years, it vanished like a mob boss on the Witness Protection Program. Nino, the lead character, is a portly middle manager, happily passing time at a Fiat plant in Milan. He finally returns home to a … Read more
This show features three intellectually hard-charging but often funny conceptual types from New York doing a wide variety of media (painting, sculpture, and video). This goofball name, Des Derrières, opens itself to all kinds of interpretations, from the opposite of the avant-garde (le derriere garde, the rear guard, those in fighting retreat) to pure scatology. … Read more
Jil Evans’ paintings are beautiful. She’s also a thinker who’s deeply ingrained with paint. A founding member of the long-standing Art and Philosophy reading group, Evans strives for meaning in form and color. The Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is a major influence; she named her dog after him. In keeping with this intense relation … Read more
Since the heyday of conceptualism in the ’70s, there have been artists doing interesting things with sound—not “music,” which is something very different, but sound as evidence of the natural or human world, combined in ways that intensify your consciousness of surroundings. This survey doesn’t cover everyone who has done this kind of work over … Read more
This show gathers some of the city’s best younger artists, across a broad spectrum of styles and media. Sean Connaughty takes a thoughtful conceptual approach to the intersection of natural form and cultural tropes, using ink, photo, sculpture, words, and whatever else comes to hand. Clea Felien searches for the essence of portrait subjects in … Read more