Arts

Arts, Theater

Mac Wellman’s wilderness of thorns and mirrors

“I came here to raise badass, obstreperous, antisocial, pestiferous, brutalitarian, loudmouthed and chaotic bloody hell. The roaring kind!” ]In playwright Mac Wellman’s Sincerity Forever, a celestial visitor to a hamlet of reverent, well-meaning hillbillies announces her presence by the declaration above, but it might also serve as the motto of the artist himself. Wellman – a major figure in New […]

Arts, Film

Notes on ‘Loro’: an iconic portrayal of Silvio Berlusconi anchors a reckoning with Italian (and American) culture by Dante A. Ciampaglia

Orson Welles once described Harry Lime, his character in The Third Man (1949), as the greatest star part ever written. “It’s where they talk about you for an hour and then you appear,” he explained to friend and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. It took 70 years, but Welles’s Lime has a challenge for star-part supremacy in Toni Servillo’s Silvio Berlusconi — […]

Arts

Fall Television Preview: Are TV Reboots Here to Save Us From a Dystopian Future Both On and Off the Screen? By Anna Ben Yehuda Rahmanan

It is said that art imitates life, and if TV trends of the past few seasons are of any indication, more accurate words have never been uttered. As political views drench into cultural spheres, rendering the world around us an overcrowded bundle of arguments and screaming matches that involve much more than politics; as “feel good journalism” becomes a relic […]

Arts, Film

Movie review: ‘Cold Case Hammarskjöld’ by Caleb Drickey

Dag Hammarskjöld was a Secretary General of the United Nations, a Nobel laureate, a staunch anti-imperialist, and, according to a certain Jack Kennedy, “the greatest statesman of our century.” On September 18, 1961, while en route to a small Rhodesian airport, his plane crashed, killing all on board. In his newest film, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Danish documentarian and provocateur Mads […]

Arts

Piotr’s picks: 3 gallery shows to check out in NYC this September

[pullquote] With NYC’s gallery scene emerging from its summer lull, there are once again numerous exhibitions to visit in the city. From Tashawn “Whaffle” Davis’s surrealistic installation/paintings at Peninsula Art Space, to The Hole’s art show exploring the rebirth of rock in NYC chronicled in the book Meet Me in The Bathroom, to Elisa Lendvay’s multimedia sculptural works at Sargent’s […]

Arts, Books

‘The Tiger’s Wife’ author returns with a glorious tale of the American West

Téa Obreht’s former student reviews her long-awaited sequel Téa Obreht’s new novel Inland is a triumphant sweeping epic that sets out across the American West following two narrators: Lurie, a stateless orphan turned outlaw trying to claim his place in the world, and Nora, a frontierswoman clinging to the community she helped build as her husband and oldest sons go […]

Arts, Books

New Crimes, Familiar Grounds: Kate Atkinson’s Detective Jackson Brodie Returns in ‘Big Sky’

It’s been nearly a decade since the world heard from Jackson Brodie, the sardonic private eye at the heart of British novelist Kate Atkinson’s series of mysteries. He was probably glad to have a vacation. Brodie has been through a lot in the course of his adventures, not least a seemingly perpetual midlife crisis, which he wrestles with at least […]

Arts, Dance, Music, Theater

Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance Presents a Sparkling Die Fledermaus by Nino Pantano

Martina Arroyo, Kennedy Award ceremony honoree, soprano supreme, who has been a beacon of light and pioneer since the 1960’s and 1970’s, a crossover classical singer with a delightful sense of humor still is in the game. She is a brilliant teacher “go getter”and nurturer through her Martina Arroyo Foundation. This gala event occurred at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter […]

Arts, Film

‘Legion’ wants to talk superhumans, not superheroes By Will Drickey

If you could make everyone believe you were a good person, would you ever bother to actually be one? That’s the central question of the third season of creator Noah Hawley and FX’s “Legion,” a run-off of the “X-Men” series. What’s odd is that the question isn’t asked by the show’s protagonist, David Haller, who discovers his diagnosis around schizophrenia […]