BY JON HOULON THEATER CRITIC I’ve been on this heavy Shakespeare trip for several years. It started with the library scene in Ulysses where Stephen Dedalus expounds his theory of Hamlet. Something about the Ghost actually being Shakespeare’s dead son, Hamnet and Shakespeare playing Hamlet. The usual biographical number that so many like to play on Willie the Shake. But Joyce drew me in. He always does. Ron Rosenbaum’s book, The Shakespeare Wars, pushed me further into what’s become somewhat of an obsession. Rosenbaum found his way into Shakespeare — in terms of a lifelong passion — via Peter […]
TELEVISION: The Witcher Is Bewitching
In the cold cruel world of The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, aka the Great White Wolf and a bunch of other cool nicknames, slays demons while he wanders through life, wondering when he will encounter his “destiny.” Geralt is played by Henry Cavill, who’s swapped his Man of Steel muscle suit for a white wig and golden eye contacts. Created by Lauren Schmidt, The Witcher is based on a series of novels and short stories written by the renowned Polish novelist Andrzej Sapkowski. The opening scene of the first episode — a deer in a snowy, densely-packed forest drinking […]
MLK: Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory
TIME: Even after the Supreme Court struck down segregation in 1954, what the world now calls human-rights offenses were both law and custom in much of America. Before King and his movement, a tired and thoroughly respectable Negro seamstress like Rosa Parks could be thrown into jail and fined simply because she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus so a white man could sit down. A six-year-old black girl like Ruby Bridges could be hectored and spit on by a white New Orleans mob simply because she wanted to go to the same school as […]
The Man Who Made MLK The Prince Of Peace
WIKIPEDIA: Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights. Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a leading activist of the early 1947–1955 civil-rights movement, helping to initiate a 1947 Freedom Ride to challenge with civil disobedience racial segregation on interstate busing. He recognized Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s leadership, and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to strengthen King’s leadership; Rustin promoted the philosophy of nonviolence and the practices of nonviolent resistance, which he had observed while […]
CINEMA: Paths Of Glory
1917 (Directed by Sam Mendes, 119 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC It’s officially peak awards season and that means war movies, because awards show voters love a man in uniform. Enter 1917 is the latest film by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall) who, along with cinematographer Roger Deakins (Bladerunner 2049, The Shawshank Redemption, pretty much every Coen Brothers movie), has produced a film that took home two Golden Globes recently causing a major upset in both the Best Picture and Director categories beating out Once Upon a time… in Hollywood, and The Irishman. Co-written with […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
NPR: Growing up in New York City’s Little Italy, as a kid, filmmaker Martin Scorsese spent a great deal of time surrounded by images of saints and martyrs at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.”Those images certainly stayed with me,” he says. As did the sermons, which often focused on “death approaching like a thief in the night. You never know when. You never know how.” Scorsese attended seminary school with the intention of becoming a priest but was expelled when he was 15 for being a class clown. Instead, he went on to become a noted filmmaker, directing Raging Bull, […]
THE LOCUST ABORTION TECHNICIAN: Q&A W/ Gibby Haynes, Frontman Of The Butthole Surfers
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on July 19th, 2020. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Saints be praised! Butthole Surfers frontman/madman Gibby Haynes will be celebrating the publication of his debut novel Me & Mr. Cigar with a book released party/concert (backed by The Paul Green School of Rock) at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville on Friday January 17th — and we are totally there for this. To help get the word out, we got Gibby on the horn for a wide ranging, no-holes barred interview. If you are new to the Gibby/Surfers’ weird-ass corner of the universe, I suggest you read […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: The stories of the hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to silence them about their affairs with Donald Trump were first reported in The Wall Street Journal by my guest, Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld. Last year, their “Hush Money” series won a Pulitzer Prize. Palazzolo and Rothfeld have expanded on that reporting in a new book called “The Fixers: The Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers And Porn Stars Who Created The 45th President.” The hush money payments were made on behalf of Donald Trump with Trump’s knowledge during the […]
CINEMA: Dan Tabor’s Best Movies Of 2019
10. Dolemite Is My Name (Dir. by Craig Brewer, 118 minutes, USA) Equal parts heartwarming and hilarious, Dolemite Is My Name is a love letter to 70s blaxploitation cinema taken to the next level by the glorious return of Eddie Murphy. The film chronicles the journey of comedian-turned-blaxploitation legend Rudy Ray Moore (Murphy), who when he was told there wasn’t a place for him on the silver screen, made his own way and brought his friends along too. I’m not traditionally one for feel good fare, but thanks to its raunchy protagonist, who also happens to be a consummate […]
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NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: Director Todd Phillips is fascinated by what he calls “left-footed characters” — people who are “out of step with the world.” His most recent film, Joker, is an origin story — of sorts — for the villain in the Batman series. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a party clown and aspiring stand-up comic who lives in a city overcome by garbage, rats and unemployment. Cuts in social services mean that Arthur is unable to afford the medications he needs to manage his mental illness. As Arthur’s mental health deteriorates, he begins to adapt the […]
CINEMA: Infinite Jester
JOKER (directed by Todd Phillips, 121 minutes, USA, 2019) BY JONATHAN VALANIA Before we get started, let me just be clear where I’m coming from on all this: I love comic book superhero movies as much as the next 53 year old arrested adolescent. Large men in tights blowing shit up, and there’s popcorn? Sign me up. Like everyone else, I have too much to do and not enough time to get it done, and yet I have burned something like 100 hours watching every installment in the Marvel Infinity Saga over the last decade, and if I had […]