The Bride! THE BRIDE! Conceptually, this seems very much like something I could get on board with: a mid-1930s Chicago-set, Mafia-tinged feminist update on the Frankenstein story, embellished with punk-rock attitude and curb-stomping? Yes, of course, who wouldn’t want that? And in the early going, it seemed like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s return to the director’s chair […]
Arts + Scene
Reviews, interviews and upcoming highlights from the week in visual and performing arts around Humboldt County.
Posted inScreens
Dark Suburban Corners
DTF St. Louis DTF ST. LOUIS. Some months ago, in a fallow period likely brought on by the end of a Taylor Sheridan binge, I had resigned myself to listlessly stream-scrolling, nearly paralyzed by the catastrophe of excess. In swooped my younger, frequently wiser brother, who recommended the decade-old series Patriot and, at that entertainment […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Black Joy and Culture at the Black Heritage Ball
In a black headwrap, tambourine in hand, Paula Jones addressed the audience of 145 gathered around tables in the Wharfinger Building Saturday night for the Black Heritage Ball. Heritage, she said, “means the inheritance of who we are and the value of our culture,” a culture, she noted, that has permeated American life “since we […]
Posted inPoetry
Change in the weather
Change is in the air The clouds gathering Could bring welcome rain, And unwelcome wind. Balance in everything. Even those things so bleak So horrible we feel crushed, Are countered by Events and actions of Bravery and beauty, Compassion and hope. Balance and bravery Make life worth living. Withstand the wind To welcome life giving […]
Posted inScreens
Top Model’s Ugly Side
Netflix docuseries revisits the obvious REALITY CHECK: INSIDE AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. “That is the only way you change. That is the only way you get better: by someone calling you on your shit.” These are the words of legendary supermodel Tyra Banks at the close of Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Netflix’s […]
Posted inDance
Music Today: Sunday, Feb. 22
It’s the final showtime for this year’s Fiesta Folklórica at the Van Duzer Theatre at 2 p.m. Tickets will run you $10-$15 for a whole lot of music and dancing in celebration ofMexican culture through the ages. This is the fourth iteration of this offering from CalPoly Humboldt’s Dance, Music and Theatre department, and, if […]
Posted inScreens
‘Wuthering Heights’ and Fennell’s ‘Wuthering’ Lows
WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2011), adapted by British director Andrea Arnold, tells a truth. The international film industry has seen many adaptations of Emily Brontë’s 1847 Gothic novel — often construed as a tale of forbidden love and irreconcilable differences with some directors opting for a more strict approach and others setting their imagination loose upon the […]
Posted inPoetry
Morning Breakfast
One apple, sliced Bowl of oatmeal, piping hot Brown sugar over the top Sweetened coconut Strong coffee, cream, slowly drunk Watching morning news In horror. — Lori Cole
Posted inScreens
Too Much, Not Enough and Perfect
NO OTHER CHOICE. It can be a stifling, stymying exercise to sit with one’s own predilections and preferences. Our current, rotten era has reinforced this, of course, but in this case, I’m thinking more specifically about the art and artists we enjoy — revere, even. We hope the work will be both reliable and unpredictable. […]
Posted inFront Row
A Full Friendship
The Half Life of Marie Curie at Redwood Curtain The Half Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson is a glimpse into the lives of two historical women of science, Marie Curie and Hertha Ayrton. The events that took place during their lives and their part in them changed them and the world. Gunderson tells […]
Posted inScreens
Survival Instincts
Send Help SEND HELP. In a rare moment of self-preservation, I chose not to see and review Melania, fun though it might have been to dunk on it as every critic not employed by or chasing the favor of the Trump administration has. Its pedigree makes all the statement it needs to, helmed by Brett […]
Posted inPoetry
Winter Revelation
Redwood bark oozes the morning downpour through spongy fibers, scattered drops free fall from high in the forest canopy, sagging cowls of moss drip from thick maple trunks the forest is leaden and still, but as the sun sinks light floods the understory, luminescent fingers stretch eastward among the tall trunks, unmasking sluggish moisture-laden motes […]