Imitation of Life

"...Dee and Juanita Moore. In this second Hollywood remake of the Fannie Hurst sob story, Turner and Moore each..."

June 22, 2000 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

The Flower of My Secret

This florid film comes across like Almodóvar riffing on Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and Douglas Sirk's (Imitation of Life). The story about a writer who is dissatisfied with her life marks the return of Almodovar's dark, delicious humor.

"...and have been missing the fun and entertaining Almodóvar of his halcyon years with films such as Women on..."

April 26, 1996 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Lily Tomlin, Citizen of Austin

The comedian on our town, Ann Richards, and getting hitched

"...homecoming. In the Eighties, she did an extended run of her first stage success and workshopped her second; bonded..."

Feb. 27, 2014 Arts Post by Robert Faires

Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist

"...Directed by: Kirby Dick. The funniest, most genuinely life-affirming movie in town right now isn't the one with..."

Jan. 16, 1998 Movie Review by Russell Smith

National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj

This highly unanticipated offering is cut ’n’ paste horn-dog humor.

"...the word "vagina," his work on this highly unanticipated offering in National Lampoon's current crop of collegiate cinema is,..."

Dec. 8, 2006 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

The Myth of Che

The Short Life of Revolutionary Che Guevara

"...are a bitch. The best, like Evan Connell's Son of the Morning Star, can easily surpass its fictional equal:..."

July 11, 1997 Books Feature by Tom Aiken

Songs of Innocence and Experience

From poetry scrawled on walls to poetry inscribed on CD: the saga of the Gourds.

"...Bowl is a place that prompts a good stirring of intellect. The fleeting nature of earthly beauty and happiness,..."

Sept. 22, 2000 Music Feature by Christopher Hess

Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control

While the rest of the nation was rallying around the flag, screenwriter and director Sturges was spitting out a series of rapid-fire Hollywood comedies that showed untruth, injustice, inequality, corruption, chicanery, and illicit sex running rampant across this land from sea to shining sea.

"...like the other whacked-out creations in Sturges' amazing gallery of oddballs -- the Weenie King, Sgt. Heppelfinger, John D...."

Jan. 14, 2000 Screens Feature by Robert Faires

R.E.M.

"...As R.E.M. continues firing off 25th anniversary reissues, the absurdly massive 8-CD/1-DVD live box..."

Dec. 7, 2018 Music Review by Doug Freeman

A Browner Shade of Black

Blazing trails of Chicano soul

"...At 12:06am, Jimmy Kimmel Live! explodes onto the air of local ABC affiliate KVUE. Punching the theme for the..."

Dec. 28, 2007 Music Feature by Margaret Moser

The Imitation Game

The heartbreaking life of Alan Turing, the engineer who changed World War II

"...Is The Imitation Game gay enough? That’s not a flippant question; I..."

Dec. 26, 2014 Movie Review by Kimberley Jones

The King of Staten Island

Pete Davidson grows up a bit in this semi-autobiographical dramedy

"...Davidson. Saturday Night Live's resident stoner-slacker exudes an aura of lazy smugness. Even if you like his schtick, he's..."

June 12, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Joys of Meanness

Scott Blackwood's initiation into the writing life

"...rides that turned you inside out, making you think life was supposed to deliver a thrill around each bend...."

Aug. 10, 2001 Books Feature by Robin Bradford

The Memory of Music

Discovering Moby Grape's Skip Spence via his only solo album Oar, and it's new tribute album, More Oar

"...in a bathtub, in a house on Hollywood east of I-35, in the very early Eighties. The water has..."

Dec. 17, 1999 Music Feature by Louis Black

Out of Many, One

Deborah Hay in a Large Group and Alone

"...her latest solo, Voilá. The piece is a distillation of the work my heart, developed by Hay and the..."

Nov. 10, 1995 Arts Feature

The Power of the Dog

Benedict Cumberbatch is malevolent and magnetic in this High Plains tragedy

"...The most overbearing character in The Power of the Dog is never seen. After all, Bronco Henry's..."

Nov. 19, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Many Saints of Newark

Nothing holy about this Sopranos prequel

"...and director Alan Taylor deliver the long-awaited origin story of the New Jersey mob boss: The Many Saints of..."

Oct. 1, 2021 Movie Review by Beth Sullivan

A Double Life

Splitting the difference between Peter Schickele and his alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach

"...The actor whose role takes over his life...."

Feb. 26, 2010 Arts Feature by Robert Faires

“It’s Like a Family Business, Except Rock Stars”: The Kindred Bond of We Don’t Ride Llamas

Afro rock sibling band is defiantly unconventional on new EP The Oracle

"...For most zoomers and younger millennials, the entrance of the video game Rock Band into our childhood homes..."

April 29, 2022 Music Feature by Julian Towers

Professors of Pleasure

Their name may suggest a lack of intelligence, but make no mistake, the Flaming Idiots are wise men when it comes to comedy.

"...air. It's not really doing anything else, just kind of hanging out in the ether like some serene, vinyl,..."

Dec. 22, 2000 Arts Feature by Robert Faires

Buzzfeed's Anne Helen Petersen on the Rise of the Unruly Woman

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud author comes to BookPeople

"...big move to the mountains closely follows the release of her second book, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud:..."

July 18, 2017 Arts Post by Rachel Rascoe

The Insect Woman

"...The Insect Woman, from Japanese director Shohei Imamura, one of the most important – and least internationally known –..."

Nov. 17, 1999 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

FamiLIES at ColdTowne Theater

In taking characters beyond improv to a scripted format, this ColdTowne project delivers an exaggerated imitation of life

"...How about, sort of, both...."

June 17, 2016 Arts Review by Wayne Alan Brenner

Sirkus Maximus

Douglas Sirk's Fifties film melodramas expose a world of emotional turbulence lurking beneath the placid surface of the Eisenhower years.

"...a nutshell, that might sum up the subversive dialectics of Douglas Sirk's films. Who is Douglas Sirk, and why..."

May 12, 2000 Screens Feature by Marjorie Baumgarten

'Heaven' Sent

Writer / director Todd Haynes resurrects the gloriously overwrought weepies of the Fifties in Far From Heaven.

"...a little, but not much. He's had these kind of ludicrously open-ended questions lobbed at him for weeks now...."

Nov. 22, 2002 Screens Feature by Kimberley Jones

Sink Into Sirk This May

Alamo screens "Majestic Tears: The Melodramas of Douglas Sirk"

"...good cry? It can be awfully cathartic, you know. Of course, not everybody can just start blubbering out of..."

May 1, 2017 Screens Post by Kimberley Jones

Mouth to Mouth

"...packing his bags on his way down and out of town. Longing for recognition, he has instead endured 15..."

Nov. 21, 1997 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Die Mommie Die!

Charles Busch's campy send-up of Fifties melodrama falls flat.

"...Sands and Nora Dunn. Die Mommie Die! wishes to spoof Hollywood’s melodramas of the Fifties, those women’s weepies of..."

Dec. 12, 2003 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Get on Up

As James Brown, Chadwick Boseman captures the performer's voice, moves, sweat, and swagger, but this biopic, as a whole, needs a stronger compass.

"...point-blank: “What, exactly, is ‘the groove’?” The flustered Godfather of Soul tries to explain that it’s defined more by..."

Aug. 1, 2014 Movie Review by William Goss

Cecil B. Demented

"...throws a comic stink bomb into the gaping maw of bad cinema -- defined by Waters' self-styled revolutionaries (who..."

Aug. 18, 2000 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

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