This Saturday night 12/12/15 will be FRANK SINATRA's 100th birthday and it will be celebrated far and wide! If you find yourself anywhere near ATLANTIC CITY this week--tune in as I host ATLANTIC CITY NIGHTS: STRICTLY SINATRA premiering on PBS this WEDNESDAY night 12/9! Here's the whole swingin' story! Photo credit: Don Altobell Just [...]
When I was 7 years old, my unsuspecting parents took me to the drive-in to see the new Hitchcock film: PSYCHO. To this day, shower curtains creep me out. But my love of movies, and Hitchcock, was sealed forever. As we enter awards season and critics' groups weigh in on the best cinematic offerings of the year, it’s the perfect time [...]
THE CRITICS HAVE SPOKEN!! This weekend, the two Boston film critics groups to which I belong announced their 2015 year end awards! So whose picks are closest to yours? Read all the way to the bottom and see if it's MAD MAX or SPOTLIGHT-- and all the rest. Peruse the results and let me know what you think! The [...]
I hate to be the grinch, but the New Rep's New England Premiere of the new "steam punk" musical THE SNOW QUEEN left me cold. Almost numb. Neither enchanting nor uplifting, the show is overlong, with a fussy book, a clunky, bland "pop rock" score, cliched lyrics, and wobbly vocals, and marked by one of the most "awkward-bordering-on-creepy" scenes on [...]
URBAN NUTCRACKER Boston is pleased to offer Joyce’s Choices followers a chance to WIN one of four Family-4 packs (4 tickets!) to see the Tony Williams Ballet Company production of Urban Nutcracker at John Hancock Hall on Friday December 11 at 7:30pm! The show is SO much fun! More than your usual ballet, URBAN NUTCRACKER celebrates a wildly diverse collage of dance, swinging from from hip hop [...]
Here's a holiday double feature to be thankful for! The first is a sci-fi adventure franchise that neatly wraps itself up, and the second is a truly artful, old-fashioned romance that may generate a BEST ACTRESS OSCAR nomination! THE HUNGER GAMES:MOCKINGJAY-Part 2 finds Jennifer Lawrence, older and wiser as Katniss Everdeen, the leader of the rebellion in Panem against the cruel President Snow (Donald Sutherland) [...]
It's hard to dramatize language, and that is the nut this show needs to crack. A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES is the latest presentation by the Huntington Theatre Company adapted by Jefferey Hatcher from John Kennedy Toole's posthumously published Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Its title is derived from Jonathan Swift's witty observation about the recognition of genius by way of the witless response to it. But what, on the page, is a rollicking, [...]
Here's the bottom line on some of what I've seen lately onstage and onscreen: THEATER *This is the last week to see Katori Hall's SATURDAY NIGHT/ SUNDAY MORNING at the Lyric Stage. It's an entertaining slice of life set in Memphis during WWII at Miss Mary's Press n' Curl, [...]
Wheelock Family Theatre is pleased to offer the followers of Joyce’s Choices a chance to win one of TWO Family-4 packs (4 tickets!) to see the Wheelock Family Theatre production of The Trumpet of the Swan on Friday November 20 at 7:30pm! I saw the show and it's SO much fun, so well-played, with a GREAT [...]
So much theater, so little time. Here are two bottom line reviews of what I've seen lately, more to come--shortly. Put this at the TOP of your "must-see" list: The Tony and Grammy Award-winning Broadway smash BEAUTIFUL-The Carole King Musical. I felt the earth move under my feet-- and you will too! The musical chronicles the evolution of the life, [...]
