Even at 40, The Shining still Frightens and Puzzles
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Film director Stanley Kubrick was not into power lunches. He didn’t use focus groups for ideas, nor did he chase box office bucks with mindless pandering. Reclusive, eccentric, and removed from the Hollywood ethos, Kubrick was a visionary whose work is fresh today because it was created with complete artistic authenticity. This year marks the […]
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Spending a Quarantine Holiday with the Stars
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Is the Coronavirus stifling your Holly Jolly this year? Waiting in line to be tested, avoiding large family gatherings, and settling for Zoom instead of real hugs? Not exactly comfy-cozy? It’s time to recall the words of painter Dorothea Tanning: “Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity.” Best yet, […]
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New Rebecca on Netflix Misses Hitchcock
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“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Those nine words, written by Daphne du Maurier in 1937, are among the most recognizable first lines of fiction in the twentieth century. Pithy and provocative, they set the misty tone of Rebecca, the gothic classic which, to date, has sold more than three million copies. It was the […]
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Contrasting Kennedy-Nixon with Trump-Biden
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Billed as the most important presidential debate since Kennedy-Nixon, the recent Trump-Biden showdown came off like a poorly staged re-creation of the “Thrilla in Manilla.” Actually, the Ali bout with Frazier was more aesthetically satisfying. Over 73 million television viewers watched the President and former Vice President carpet-bomb what was left of civility in American political discourse. Showmanship […]
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The Traveling Cremains of Dorothy Parker
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Fifty-three years after her death, Dorothy Parker’s cremains have just been buried in their forever home at Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York. This protracted ordeal began on June 7, 1967 when Parker died from a heart attack in her Manhattan hotel suite. The wry author and wisecracking mainstay of the famed Algonquin Round Table […]
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