Opinions 06 Feb 2020 | film

45th Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival

The dawning of the Fifties birthed the Golden Age of science fiction cinema in America, lasting until…well, has it ever really ended? From the nuclear blast ground zero of giant mutant invasion sci-fi, every subsequent era has had its own impactful wave: the mind-expanding, body-introspective films of the Sixties; the socio-political-environmental Seventies; the Eighties, where the breakneck evolution of special effects sired block bluster-y, world-exploring epics; the… continue

Features 22 Dec 2019

Growth of Coincidences

encountering the Poetry Mobile public art project

You might have been attracted to Jerry Beck and his non-profit cultural organization the Revolving Museum by one of the many strategic lures set up to summon the interaction of passersby in municipal locations. In Boston’s Downtown Crossing, a basketball hoop bolted to the side of a truck elicits an unusual exercise—the idea of playing a quick game of pick-up in a space usually… continue

Opinions 23 Nov 2019 | film

The Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a structure meant to caution, to establish perimeters in limited visibility, to warn when navigating the partially unknown. The Lighthouse, the latest film by filmmaker Robert Eggers, is all of these things, and nothing short of one of the darkest films produced in the last decade, even despite a few laughs. Co-writing the screenplay with his brother, Eggers persists in… continue

Features 26 Oct 2019

Phantom Presence

experiencing filmmaker Kubrick’s ghostly camera

Film set photo: *2001: A Space Odyssey* (1968)

To Stanley Kubrick—formalist artist, literate spiritualist, inveterate chess player, and cinematic explorer at the intersection of society, government, and technology—machines had the capacity for meaningful interaction with humans, the promise of a creative, productive synergy that manages, to this day, to be underutilized and… continue

News Items 04 Oct 2019 | music

Itamar Borochov this Autumn

Borochov Dynasty: Itamar, Yisrael, and Avri

“There’s a serenity to it and a fire,” Borochov says. “Sometimes it’s like playing as if you got punched in the gut. Sometimes, it’s like you’re seeing angels.” The music of Borochov’s quartet is a mix: contemporary jazz with Middle Eastern and North African melodies and rhythms, drawing from Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish synagogue music cultures. “I’m deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, and heavily influenced by the… continue

Opinions 03 Sep 2019 | film

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

If nineteen sixty-seven was ground zero for a tidal shift in American cinema, thanks to the French stepping up their own New Wave game and hailing the movies as a vital and distinct art form, then 1969 took eccentric, elliptical, and experimental narrative and injected it into the veins of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking. That first… continue

Features 29 Jul 2019

Blasphemous Visualscapes

encountering the imagery of Scary Stories

Drawing by Stephen Gammell for *Scary Stories*

In fourth grade, I borrowed from one of my classmates a series of books rumored to be banned from teachers’ reading lists: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1981), More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1984), and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones (1991). To this day, I sometimes have trouble eating a meal if I think of this collection of intestine-churning folktales,… continue

Features 21 Jun 2019

Everyday Absence

reviewing Morgan Parker's Magical Negro book

(detail) *Magical Negro*; Photo: ArtsEditor.com

In 2015, Morgan Parker published “if you are over staying woke” with Poetry magazine. I was taking a contemporary poetry seminar the summer of that year, and this was one of the poems in a stapled stack of her work we were assigned to discuss in two days. I ended up skipping class because I knew I couldn’t talk about “If you are over staying woke” without… continue

Features 03 May 2019

They’re Among Us

reviewing Huma Bhabha: They Live exhibit at ICA Boston

*Road To Balkh*; Photo: ©2019 ArtsEditor.com

Ancient and alien, artist Huma Bhabha’s sculpted and drawn figures are currently on view through May 27th in her They Live exhibit at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Cumbrous, god-like prisoners of their own isolation, they loom over wasted industrial cities, openly regard their denizens and worshippers, and stare out at the lost and wandering. It’s a… continue

News Items 02 Apr 2019 | Theater

Regis College Stages New Robin Hood

Regis College students during play rehearsals on campus. Photo: M.D. Smith

This month at Regis College, the famed English tale of Robin Hood and his loyal gang of thieves is set for the stage. As Marian, Or The True Tale of Robin Hood will maintain the core of the original narrative, playwright Adam Szymkowicz presents a new version. According to Director Jennifer Potts of Regis’ Fine Arts Center, “The beauty of this play is that we take the mythological story of Robin Hood and completely… continue

Opinions 30 Mar 2019 | music

Worn-Tin’s Cycles

“Every show is different, you never know what to expect.” Those were the words of Warner Hiatt, known by his moniker, Worn-Tin, after playing an album release party at The Echo in Los Angeles for his sophomore record, Cycles. Hiatt is eccentric live, electrifying, at one point lying flat on his back on stage shredding his… continue

Features 28 Feb 2019

Noir’s Goodbye Kiss

encountering noir screenings for seventy-five years

Film noir’s opaque shadows will fall on Boston this June when the traveling film festival Noir City slinks onto the screen of Harvard Square’s Brattle Theatre. For those who believe Billy Wilder’s nasty, lusty Double Indemnity was, in 1944, the jolt that brought noir’s patchwork monster to life (a debatable take, to be sure, especially when you… continue

From the Archives: 1999-2020

21 Feb 2011