Happy 55th Anniversary, “Oliver!”
Fifty-five years ago. the film "Oliver!" was released, and it's one of the most enjoyable literary adaptations and stage-to-screen musicals of all time. Oliver! is a 1968 British period musical…
Thoughtful reviews of theatre, television and music.
Fifty-five years ago. the film "Oliver!" was released, and it's one of the most enjoyable literary adaptations and stage-to-screen musicals of all time. Oliver! is a 1968 British period musical…
The levels of the adjective Cuteness are Cute, the comparative Cutesie, and the superlative Cutesie-poo. Emma Horwitz’s Mary Gets Hers fits into the superlative slot. It’s Cutesie-poo at its most…
Putting the blackened, flash-frozen heart of Chile’s undead past into a blender, blitzing it to a lumpen pulp and guzzling down the result with grimly comic relish, Pablo Larraín, after…
Rivalry is a kind of haunting. It takes place over time. The longer it goes on, the more the initial question — “How much did they hate each other?” —…
There are very few romantic comedies where it’s compelling to watch your two leads go through the story without much interaction. Sleepless in Seattle may, in fact, be the only…
A common belief is that books are always better than their screen adaptations. But what about when they’re not ― as is the case with, say, “American Psycho,” which turned…
“Elemental,” Disney and Pixar’s latest, feels emblematic of the studio’s struggle to recapture its original magic, making a mess of its world-building in service of a conventional story that fails…
Search for "The Little Mermaid side-by-side," and you'll land upon several user-created videos drawing visual comparisons between Disney's 1989 hand-drawn animated hit and the trailer for the new star-studded "live-action"…
Dig is a psychologically rich play about complicated people and tangled relationships. Theresa Rebeck shows herself to be a skilled director of her own work, and the cast members, several…
Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake” may very well be the first pandemic novel that anyone actually likes. Set among the cherry trees of northern Michigan in the summer of 2020, narrator…