By ALAN SMASON While the Academy Awards buzz was mostly about “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” a smaller film starring Anthony Hopkins – “One Life” – was distributed a few weeks ago and is still playing if you can find it in area theaters. Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the aged Nicholas Winton, the now 86-year-old […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Director Guy Nattiv uses the symbolism of birds throughout the movie “Golda.” Birds show up at the very beginning, when the modern State of Israel is being fashioned out of the former Palestinian Mandate in 1948. Birds are next depicted flying as scenes from the Arab-Israeli conflict […]
By ALAN SMASON Polish filmmaker Rafal Zielinski is finally seeing his independent film “Tiger Within” released in theaters today, Friday, July 7. The motion picture released through Menemsha Films is notable in that it stars the late Emmy Award-winning actor Ed Asner in his final film role. With principal photography having been shot in 2018, […]
By JACK LYONS, Special to Theatrecriticism.com With a film title like “The Jewish Jail Lady and the Holy Thief,” how could one not be intrigued? This film documentary digs deep into the telling of the true life story, warts and all, of two remarkable outlier individuals in today’s judgmental, divisive, complicated and troubled driven world, […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When Lin-Manuel Miranda was 17, he was exposed to the musical Rent for the first time and he became attuned to the original contemporary music and diverse casting demanded by Jonathan Larson, the show’s creative genius. That inspiration and connection to writing for theatre was reinforced when […]
By JACK LYONS, Desert Local News Agatha Christie was the queen of the murder mystery genre hands down. The transfer of her novels to the stage and for viewers of the film medium only increased her fans and followers. She was the most popular author in history, second only to the Bible. However, after seven decades […]
By JACK LYONS It is said that with age comes wisdom. It is also said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The eyes of today’s beholders are currently in love with “West Side Story”, master filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s brilliant revival and updating of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” from 16th century Italy to […]
By JACK LYONS When it comes to original stories made into movies and TV films about the subject of love and marriage, one would be hard pressed to ignore the angst-filled dramas of the great Swedish filmmaker and writer-director Ingmar Bergman. Bergman brought to the screen his series of reality-based films about the lives of […]
By ANNE SIEGEL (Ashland, OREGON) – Water by the Spoonful is perhaps even more relevant today than when it was staged at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2014. The play initially appeared at the complex’s intimate Thomas Theatre, under the smart direction of Shishir Kurup. It was filmed in front of a live audience. Written […]
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By AARON KRAUSE A story that is ripe with rich, raw, and real emotion is often a tale worth musicalizing. Certainly, Frank McCourt’s award-winning memoir, “Angela’s Ashes,” is a work that fits into that category. Fortunately, composer/lyricist Adam Howell, and librettist Paul Hurt saw the musical possibilities in McCourt’s self-described “epic of woe,” a best-seller […]