Arts + Culture
Catching predators in the name of fame
“Primetime” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. Documentarian Lance Oppenheim (“Ren Faire,” “Spermworld”) steps into the narrative feature-scape with this lurid submersion into the early years of online predation, where chatrooms were used as Venus flytraps to snare underage targets and goad them into real-life meetups. The scummy underbelly, as Oppenheim depicts it in “Primetime,” […]
9/25 is now Dolly Parton Day, featuring her greatest film
Last month the world said goodbye to Dolly Parton, a woman with as valid a claim as any to the title of Most Beloved Public Figure on Earth (she blew away the competition in a survey in March). In addition to her seven-decade recording career, her expansive humanitarian work, and her renowned decency as a […]
Central Square’s ‘Eleanor’ a Plum production
Central Square Theater’s absorbing and enlightening production of Mark St. Germain’s “Eleanor” opens on a set of benches, panels of greenery, and a projection of a statue called “Grief.” The acclaimed Paula Plum, wearing a dignified dress from an earlier era, steps onto the stage, and we are face-to-face with the embodiment of one of […]
“Marie Antoinette and friends: Three films by Sofia Coppola”
If the words “Hollywood royalty” apply to anyone, it’s Sofia Coppola. Her father is Francis Ford Coppola, director of such American classics as “The Godfather” (1972) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979); her mother, Eleanor, was an acclaimed documentarian; and her family tree includes such thespians as Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, and Nicolas Cage. Unlike some Hollywood […]
A Robin Hood origin story
“The Uprising” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. The latest action flick from “Jason Bourne” director Paul Greengrass has been marred by a marketing fumble that hailed the movie as a Robin Hood origin story. “Witness the rise of Robin Hood,” was the mid-summer tagline until Focus Features caught flack — too much of a […]
Children born at Mount Auburn Hospital invited to meet “The Dot” author
From 2014 to 2016, babies born at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge were given a copy of the book “The Dot.” Now, its author Peter H. Reynolds is inviting those kids to meet him. Read more Cambridge historian, Somerville comics press honored with Massachusetts Book Awards The “Dot Kids,” as he calls them, are invited […]
Futures in flux at MIT and Harvard documentary film centers as founding leaders step down
The 2020s have been hard on Boston’s documentary film scene. In 2022, the LEF Foundation’s DocYard screening series went on indefinite hiatus; in 2024, the Bright Lights Cinema Series was cancelled after its curator, Anna Feder, was let go in what appeared to be a politically motivated dismissal. In comparison, last month’s leadership transitions at […]
Art horror, serial killer nonchiller, espionage comedy and a gorefest
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. In this latest art-horror curio from Jane Schoenbrun, the alt-indie hand behind psycho-chillers “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (2021) and “I Saw the TV Glow” (2024), the “Friday the 13th” film franchise and gender politics get skewered with bloody orgasmic […]
In “Rhinoceros,” whether to run with the herd is the question
At the start of the American Repertory Theater’s superb production of “Rhinoceros,” it’s a quiet morning in a French village, and Bergeron is late for coffee with his only friend, Jean. Read more Man killed by police identified But Jean (Paul Giamatti) knows Bergeron will be late and arrives late as well. The two could […]
Young poets are honored for ‘playful to inspiring’ works
This spring, for the 27th year, the city of Cambridge, Mass., awarded poetry prizes to a worthy group of aspiring poets in grades K–8. Of the more than 500 applicants, nominated mostly by teachers, 55 winners were chosen by a panel of youth services librarians. Read more Safety in The Port has always been a […]