Archive | April 2012
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The Innkeepers
It’s all set-up and very little payoff, but I mean that as a compliment. Like 2009’s “The House of the Devil” before it, director Ti West demonstrates that he has very little interest in “let-it-all-hang-out” horror and reliance on CGI. He gets at your gut by building the dread, and making you wonder. All the […]
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Is it okay to start liking Tom Cruise again, because I think I’m ready. The poor man has suffered enough. After all that couch jumping a few years ago, and subsequently picking on Brooke Shields and lecturing Matt Lauer, Tom was becoming an insufferable prick. But after almost 30 years as a movie star(an incredible […]
Clybourne Park on Broadway
I’ve been pondering how to write about this Pulitzer and Olivier-award winning play since seeing its 3rd official Broadway performance just a few days ago. It is certainly a cleverly written treatise on racism in America. Despite being intensely dramatic at times, it’s also rip-roaringly funny. Yet all the while it skewers mainly white Americans […]
“I want you to hold it between your knees.”—Happy 75th to the great Jack Nicholson!
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that Jack Nicholson is my favorite living actor, and has been for a good thirty years or so. And don’t come to me with that ridiculous claim that he’s always “Jack Nicholson”, because saying it in my presence comes with a lecture. Anyone who spouts that falls […]
Flashback: on 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun
And why, of all things, “A Raisin in the Sun”? Well, there’s good reason. In fact, you can consider this a two-pronged review. This coming weekend I am going to see the new Broadway production of the 2011 Pulitzer prize-winning play “Clybourne Park”. It officially opened just a few hours ago(after a brief 2010 run […]
“Carrie” cast album!!!
Word has it that the recently closed off-Broadway revival of “Carrie” has recorded an official cast album as of yesterday! This is wonderful news from the MCC theater for us “Carrie” completists and overall fans of the music of the show. The original 1988 Broadway version never received a cast recording after being skewered by […]
“The Avengers” is coming…please don’t blow it!!!
Expectations are high, box office will be gargantuan…now let’s just hope it doesn’t suck! There will be an exciting collection of superhero films over the next year or so(“The Amazing Spider-Man”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, Superman returns in “Man of Steel”), but “The Avengers” is the maverick that is boldly bringing FOUR franchises together. This […]
Sleep No More…a milestone reached
Chances are most thought it would never get this far. There are no television commercials for it. And good luck locating an ad in the New Yorker or the Times. It was originally slated to run for a scant few weeks in early 2011. It started “previewing” in March of that year, officially opened on […]
1,000 Hits!!!
Just reached it officially…and that doesn’t count the posts that go directly to e-mail. Thank you all for your continued support. Hopefully, IF I’m doing something right, I’ll be able to keep it up. I’m extremely grateful to all those who take the time to read my ramblings! ML
On Stanley Kubrick…completion.
Well, I’ve done it. With recent viewings of once impossible-to-find copies of Stanley Kubrick’s 1953 offerings, “Fear and Desire” and “The Seafarers”, I have officially watched every reel of film this man ever created. Hey, don’t snicker…this has been some journey! My Kubrick obsession began around 1985 with constant re-watchings of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. […]
Reviewed by Mark Leonard 