A critic's job is never done. I am always trying to learn more and deliver ever more nuanced reviews of the work I see. As a white critic, I am always trying to see beyond the lens of my whiteness. In reviewing IN THE HEIGHTS I didn't understand the lack of representation of Afro-Latino characters [...]
Seven years before the Pulitzer Prize-winning global phenomenon that is HAMILTON opened on Broadway in 2015 and blew the roof off staged musicals forever, creator Lin-Manuel Miranda's first Broadway musical the Tony Award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS opened in the same theater in 2008. Now, like "Hamilton," it's also a movie, a glorious movie more powerful [...]
I have loved Tina Turner from the first moment I saw her perform. It may have been her very first TV appearance in 1960 on "American Bandstand." I surely saw her one and only appearance with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1970. I had no context for what [...]
At the end of 2020, a flood of movies was released all at once and it's time to catch up with the best. Among them, is a film based on Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" starring Oscar-winner Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman in his final film performance which might [...]
The two events I recommend here are among the most joyous presentations of the season, and are just as, if not more effective in virtual form! One marks its 5oth ANNIVERSARY this year, that medieval pageant celebrating the winter solstice known as THE CHRISTMAS REVELS. The second has been a classic on page, stage, and [...]
Ever hear of Ellis B. Haizlip? I hadn't. Now I'll never forget him. MR SOUL! an award-winning documentary about the first Black nighttime TV talk show host in America, Ellis Haizlip, who went on the air during the turbulent late 60's with a show called SOUL! is a revelation and documents a revolution! [...]
You are in luck-- a fresh, exhilarating new film opens on YOUR screens this weekend: WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES. A buzzy hit at Sundance last year, it's the debut feature film by writer/director Makoto Nagahisa and sparkles with inventiveness and style, humor and wisdom, humanity and digital dazzle. It's a fizzy mashup of retro video [...]
Who said you can't put theater on TV? The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical HAMILTON has made the quantum leap from stage to screen and the result is a stunning, exhilarating, technical and artistic triumph. The musical's power, brilliance, and relevance has been cinematically galvanized for a country again on the brink of revolution. [...]
Our mourning and awakening continues this weekend as BLACK LIVES MATTER holds center stage. THEATER: From the BOCH CENTERÂ watch this potent, hyper-relevant performance piece called âOde To The Young Black Manâ from the 2016 City Spotlights final showcase, written and performed by program alumnus Alex Drumm! MOVIES: The Coolidge Corner Theatre [...]
This is a tough weekend. MINNEAPOLIS looms large and soul searching goes deep as we come to grips with the festering wound that is racism in this country. And so I begin my round-up of virtual diversions with a magnificent piece of theater that gets right to the point and has gone from STAGE TO [...]
