People embark into the wilderness to find out who they are and what they are, seeking to distance themselves from what they know and find familiar, often learning more than they either expected or wanted. People do not go into the wilderness to seek solitude, but to seek surroundings consistent with the loneliness they already […]
Criticism is not about the conscious refusal to distance oneself from the audience, but about trying to explain why or why not a prospective audience member would want to invest in experiencing a particular work. Every film has some plausible audience, but some films are cynically made for an audience of idiots and it is […]
Ben Mondor, after buying the franchise out of bankruptcy in 1977, turned the Pawtucket Red Sox into a national model of how to run a successful, fan-friendly, family-friendly, and profitable minor-league baseball team. Until his death in 2010, Mondor defined the beloved institution that became, arguably, Rhode Island’s premier professional sports organization. On February 23, […]
“A lot of people don’t emphasize the business aspect in the academy. How do you make a living?” asked Jim Jermanok rhetorically, explaining the focus of his workshop, Successful Film Producing and Financing: Making Your Film Happen, to be offered at the Brooklyn Coffee and Tea House in Providence on Fri, Feb 21. Jermanok said […]
The 2015 annual Providence French Film Festival is dedicated in memory of its long-time director, Shoggy Waryn, who passed away only days before the opening of the festival last year in February 2014. Waryn, a native of France, was active with the festival since joining the Brown University faculty in 2001 and became the festival […]
I should concede at the outset that Tom Stoppard’s now-classic meta-theatrical Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of my favorite plays. It is a clever and rapid-fire comedy that combines Marx Brothers witticisms with serious philosophical quandaries, but – trust me on this from personal experience – is a lot funnier than a graduate-level […]
The Cable Car Cinema in Providence was among a phalanx of independent theaters that screened The Interview after all of the major chains abandoned it, fearful of controversy and terrorist threats generally assumed to emanate from North Korea, where some were unhappy to see their dictator Kim Jong-Un portrayed as an assassinated buffoon. The first two […]
No motion picture could live up to its hype after the unprecedented rollercoaster ride The Interview has had. Still, The Interview is a much better film than many of the reviews would have you believe. To be clear, the film is no contender to be a cinematic classic, but it also is a lot more […]
North Korea is one of history’s most brutal, irrational, vicious, and cruel regimes. The so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not democratic, views its people as dehumanized slaves to the collective, and sullies the notion of republicanism through rule by a monarchic dynasty now in its third generation. Despite its status as the closest […]
The closing of The Providence Phoenix last week after 36 years is “a sign of the times,” said Ty Davis, the founding publisher of The NewPaper in 1978. He continued in that role until its sale to The Boston Phoenix group that led to its eventual re-branding as The Providence Phoenix. During that decade running […]