The Wolves of Red Riding
They do what they want “The North,” thunders someone in Red Riding every so often. “Where we do what we want!” It’s the unofficial motto […]
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Trainwreck
A flawed character struggles to unravel the threads of a pivotal event, though hobbled by some impediment – amnesia, maybe, or being stranded in a
Beatle Stations
The first volume of Lewisohn’s trilogy The Beatles: All These Years. The main drawback is that at only about 800 pages, it’s over too soon.
Power Couple
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when it comes to Pride and Prejudice, once is not enough. For acolytes, Jane Austen’s best-selling novel of the
King of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is mad as a hatter, but the trains run on time. Having been mayor for a couple of decades, Tom Kane
Epiphanies
“It’s like everybody knows the story,” muses a reporter to her colleague. “Except us.” The journalists of “Spotlight,” a legendary investigative unit at the Boston
Laughter, Tears, Curtain
It was the short, sharp shock heard round the world – eventually. But in the world of Topsy-Turvy, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is being
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Welcome to the Party, Pal
“The story is ridiculous – ludicrous.” That’s director John McTiernan blithely dismissing the plot of one of the most successful thrillers of the past 30
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About arrivals and departures
The epic saga of immigration is brought to human scale in Brooklyn, a critically acclaimed film based on the novel by Irish writer Colm Tóibín,
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Future Past
Young Alex DeLarge and his gang of droogs aren’t choosy about whose lives they wreak mindless havoc on. From the down-at-the-heels to the well-heeled, the
Pop-Up Drive-In
Movie lovers have a chance this weekend to experience a rare venue for viewing in the north – a pop-up drive-in movie night is set
Deadly Fascination, or, Better Living with du Pont
Panama Papers got you down? Still feeling the chill of tax season? A dose of the 2014 film Foxcatcher, based on a true story and
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Ah, Salander
Did Stieg Larsson know his character Lisbeth Salander was destined to achieve the iconic status of a Marvel superhero? Maybe not. In the 2011
Wonder Dog
In 1918, a young American soldier emerged from the ruins of a military kennel with a frantic, famished German Shepherd and her five newborn pups.
All for One
They stayed in the game … They’re the most-famous musicians you’ve never heard of. Merry Clayton’s performance in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is the exemplar
Love, Ambivalently
Many beloved Christmas films had inauspicious debuts. It’s a Wonderful Life lost money for the studio when it was released in 1946, but television viewings
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Soldiering on in the Cold War
No gadgets, guns or trophy girl in sight – John le Carré’s spy universe is stripped of glamour, but all the more fascinating for his
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Swordplay and Flaming Arrows
Winter is coming. You might say that’s our motto above the 60th parallel, but they’re also words to live by in Winterfell, the northernmost kingdom
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A Comedy That is Actually Warm and Funny
Another comedy that’s not really a comedy – that’s been my reaction to many contemporary films that seem to centre on the sad-clown school of
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Down Highway 61
Near the end of his memoir, Chronicles, Volume I, Bob Dylan recalls the seismic effect of hearing Robert Johnson’s album, King of the Delta Blues
Lucy Come Home
Living on a knife’s edge isn’t as exciting as it sounds. It can actually be downright tedious, and that’s what Wendy and Lucy captures —
The Very Bad Thing
Life isn’t fair. Jobs, Wozniak, Gates, Zuckerberg, and Swartz were, or are, all geniuses on the frontlines of the digital revolution, but only one of
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Alexander Supertramp Was Here
In the North, peril can strike anyone in the summer, or the winter. But when Christopher McCandless died at the age of 24 in August,
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No Singing, No Dancing, No Silly Cartoons
Walt Disney’s magic touch on celluloid created indelible memories for many moviegoers, but it induced tears of rage in P.L. Travers (born Helen Goff) at
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The War At Home
An article that appeared in the Washington Post just before Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States, about a butler who had served
Shakespeare Re-told: Macbeth
Food is a hardworking component of any television or film crew, serving as prop, symbol, characterization, and plot point for numerous scripts. Jerry Seinfeld has
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Love, Hope, and Evil Nuns
Imagine being able to pick out a child from an assortment of infants and toddlers, as easily as choosing a puppy from a litter or
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What Incurable Optimists Can Do
They did impossible things because they were too young to know they couldn’t, and in the late 18th century nothing seemed more unlikely than convincing
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A New Normal
No one gets out of paradise unscathed. That’s what Matt King says as The Descendants, a drama set in Hawaii, begins. Matt (George Clooney), a
War Stories
“We were praying and killing each other at the same time.” — A German soldier reflecting on D-Day Once peace is waged what do we
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Everyone has a doppelganger somewhere in the world, so they say. Sarah Manning, a small-time drifter, sees hers seconds before her double jumps in front
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Shadows from Light
One road in, one road out — that’s Broadchurch, a picturesque town on the Dorset coast of Britain. So when 11-year-old Danny Latimer is found
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The Ballad of Llewyn the Luckless
There’s at least one struggling musician who doesn’t need Bob Dylan to tell him failure is no success at all. Llewyn Davis is in Greenwich
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A Free Woman
Life doesn’t hold many nice surprises for Norma Rae Wilson. She was widowed at 21 and left to raise two children from different fathers by
Six Sides of Bob Dylan
He wakes up as one person and goes to bed as someone else completely; that’s what Bob Dylan said about himself in a long-ago interview.
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Wanted: Dead or Alive
The FBI hunt for slippery John Dillinger was the match of the century. He was the bureau’s first public enemy number one during the crime
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It’s a Mad, Mad World
It might have been on John Lennon’s mind when he wrote “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (so speculates Beatles biographer Bob Spitz). It was
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We’re all works-in-progress
Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re related. That’s the reality for Maggie and Rose Feller, the central characters in the 2005 film In Her Shoes, a
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Zuckerberg’s Cool Idea
Facebook marked its 10th anniversary this February, a few months before its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, turns 30. It’s not every 19-year-old that changes the world.
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Love and War
How do you relate to someone after you discover they’ve committed monstrous acts? The generation born in Germany after World War II – who Berthold
Looking Inside the Hearts and Minds of Human Clones
Somewhere in England, students congregate daily on the pastoral grounds of the Hailsham boarding school watching soccer, gossiping, and daydreaming about the future. They playfully
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DVD Review: Cranford
It’s 1842 and Lady Ludlow is appalled to discover that a young woman applying for a position as her maid has learned to read and
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Life Before Fame
There’s an emotional charge watching a biographical drama and knowing where the road a character is on will take him. But the triangle at the