An oxymoron? East Side Story is a fascinating 1997 documentary about musical comedy from the Soviet bloc from the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s! OK, it does sound like an oxymoron. But it turns out that it isn’t. This German documentary starts… Read More ›
Completely inadvertently, I ended up watching two episodes of I’ll Have What Phil’s Having last night. I had never even heard of the show before, but it instantly hooked me when I saw the shot of the piazza in Panicale, a small hilltown (half… Read More ›
What is an old Detroit police car doing on Ashmont Street in Dorchester? The answer, of course, is that they’re making a movie … and 2016 Dorchester is apparently a perfect stand-in for 1967 Detroit: The movie, which is directed… Read More ›
Being forced out of one’s comfort zone is a good thing, right? So they say. But I’m not so sure. I just watched School Daze, a 1988 pseudo-comedy written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee, who also played one of the lead roles. It’s primarily about… Read More ›
Wow! What a great film! How did I miss The Ruling Class during all these years — it was released in 1972! — that was 44 years ago!!! — but I am so glad that I have finally watched it. This over-the-too… Read More ›
My previous post was about routes; this one is about roots. It’s not clear to me why it has taken me until Season 3 to start watching “Finding Your Roots,” a well-known series on PBS hosted by Skip Gates. This… Read More ›
Literary and musical connections can be rather complicated. First, we have Mozart’s well-known “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” often translated (literally but inaccurately) as “A Little Night Music.” Nachtmusik actually means “serenade,” but the literal translation has become even more well-known as a result… Read More ›
If you’re a film buff (as I am not), you will want to see Hitchcock/Truffaut, currently playing in Kendall Square, Cambridge. I went with a couple of friends who are film buffs, as I had assumed (correctly) that they would enjoy this documentary about the… Read More ›
“Sigh. I’m 0 for 3 in recent books and movies!” That’s what I said to myself after finishing a book that I had recently taken out of the library. What I meant was that I had disliked all three of… Read More ›
What do meerkats, the Canadian Pacific, coral reefs, and the Dead Sea scrolls all have in common? Maybe I should have added a fifth item, so we could play “one of these things is not like the others.” But that’s… Read More ›
