The tail end of a New England winter can be excrutiating. From potholes assaulting your tires every half mile (when there isn’t a sheet of ice on the road worthy of figure skating conditions) to mountains the size of the Abominable Snowman on your front lawn … if I said it all grows old fast, […]
Has spring sprung yet? The bitch usually does with a sting, at least here in New England, where this idyllic season greets us with hearty slap in the face from sleet, freezing rain or a final snow. So aptly does this edition’s cocktail come named: Spring Stinger. The Stinger, a supposedly popular pre-prohibition drink, uses […]
“She looks alarmed, and it is the same disingenuousness that marked the bad acting of so many of Emily’s friends … when they pretended to be actors in their community theater dramas …” – Chris Bohjalian, The Night Strangers “It’s very hard to insert nudity into an Ibsen play.” – Patrick (Kevin Broccoli), “Amateurs” “No […]
Aries: You’re looking for some quiet time, but the roller coaster ride is not over. You’re beginning to realize how some of your behaviors create the reactions that they do. Often these reactions are in your favor, just as often they are not. Question is, what are you going to do about it? Beware around the […]
There’s a reason my Irish friends want to be in the US for St. Paddy’s Day, and it’s not because we know how to keep it low-key. Parades and music, dancing and drinking; it’s an excuse to wear 50 shades of green and be fully intoxicated by 10am. And since St. Paddy’s “Day” was more […]
To follow up my previous piece about the great films showing at Il Cinema Ritrovato next week, I am reviewing another film that will be shown during the festival: Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, a fascinating, but somewhat forgotten thriller that won the best foreign film Oscar in 1971. Investigation… concerns a police detective who kills his girlfriend […]
“Can you please go inside?” I begged toward the rooftop, where a soon-to-be 70-year-old man was slouched over in a defiant hunch, his Ryobi chainsaw revving. “No, get the lah-duh!” he hollered down, in that patois ubiquitous within the urban-core of RI – an accent that I have self-consciously conditioned myself to be aware of […]
One of the great things about writing for Motif is cluing people in to theatrical events that otherwise might go unnoticed by the general film-going public. Next week the Italian Studies Department at Brown University will present a touring version of Il Cinema Ritrovato, a yearly festival held to showcase the restoration work performed by the […]
Dave Borges recently debuted his new film, One Foot in the Grave, at Cable Car Cinema in Providence. It was shown to a sizable audience of mostly cast and crew, and it was paired with Bryan Casey’s shorter thriller He Never Said a Word, a film that Borges helped to edit. Both films were commendable. He Never […]