Arts and Culture (All)

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/3/12

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Yo-ho! Yo-ho! A claymation life for me!

The pirate captain (Hugh Grant: Did You Hear About the Morgans?) is having a bad year. As the Pirate of the Year competition looms large, the good captain has little to show for his pillaging. Other pirates like Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek: Puss in Boots), Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry: Tinga Tinga Tales) and Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven: Entourage) boast rare jewels and mountains of gold. The pirate captain? He has a lustrous beard and a very fat parrot. He’s the joke of...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Jane C. Elkin - 5/3/12

Compass Rose Studio Theater’s Oliver!

I was choked up from the moment the somber workhouse orphans marched onstage

Lionel Bart’s musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist has seen a lot of action in 50 years: 10 Tony nominations and five Oscars, including 1969’s Best Picture. It’s the tale of an innocent orphan among a den of thieves in Victorian London, a story I’ve seen and performed countless times. Yet Compass Rose Studio Theater’s production is in some ways the most memorable, the most heart-wrenching. I was choked up from the...

Article - Food and Drink; by J. Alex Knoll - 5/3/12

Where There's Smoke ...

Naptown barBAYq returns with good tastes for good works

Come May 4, the air will be heavy with the smell of charcoal, smoke and slow-cooked meats as dozens of hard-core barbecue aficionados fire up their grills at the second annual Naptown barBAYq contest and music festival. Hosted by the Parole Rotary Foundation, this year’s event kicks off Friday afternoon at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds and continues all day Saturday, culminating in the crowning of the Kansas City Barbecue Society Grand Champion. ...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/26/12

Chimpanzee

Nature is cute, if you live in a Disney documentary

Oscar is a baby chimpanzee, living a blissful life in the jungles of Uganda. His mom dotes on him. He romps with other baby chimps during upbeat musical sequences. But in the distance the evil Scar and his hoard of chimp raiders threaten Oscar’s idyllic life. If it sounds like a Disney movie, it is. The latest documentary from Disneynature, Chimpanzee, makes a monkey out of the term documentary. This is nature without death. This...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Jane C. Elkin - 4/26/12

The Belle of Amherst

This Bay Theatre Company show will appeal to any with emotion and ears to hear

“How was the play?” my son-in-law, the family sports, poker and comics buff, asked. “Good,” I said, “but two hours of Emily Dickinson wouldn’t be your style.” “Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell,” he said. Poem 96 of her 1800 published posthumously. He knew it by heart. You could have knocked me over with a fountain pen, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Dickinson’s...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

The Cabin in the Woods

Zombies and ghosts and mermen. Oh my!

When five attractive college co-eds spend the weekend at a creepy isolated cabin in the woods, it’s no surprise they’re marked for death. We’ve seen this movie, and it always ends the same way: Someone gets high, someone flashes her breasts and almost everyone dies. Such is the world of slasher filmmaking. Fans love it just the way it is. It’s a formula so common that many movies have poked fun at its absurdity while still getting...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

Bully

It’s hard not to beat up on this well-intentioned film

Alex is a sweet kid with huge lips, glasses and ears that stick out. To an adult, he’s an adorably awkward adolescent who hasn’t grown into his features. To his peers, he’s a target. Every day his school bus ride is a gauntlet of humiliation. He’s punched, choked and stabbed with pencils. When he comes home, his sister calls him a loser. But Alex smiles because at this point he’s used to it. His parents complain to the school...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Leigh Glenn - 4/19/12

The Rocky Horror Show

It’s easy to have a good time at this Theatre at Anne Arundel Community College showing

Every generation has its rites of passage, not to be confused with steps up on the ladder of maturity. For 40 years, seeing and participating in The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been one of those rites. Part of the rite is dressing up. Part is talking back. Part is making rain with water pistols and tossing bread crusts every which way. Not least is doing The Time Warp. Can the live Rocky Horror Show compete with the screen version? The Horror Show now...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/12/12

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Children can be little monsters. But if you give birth to a real monster? We Need to Talk About Kevin is a nightmare about the nature of evil. When a pregnancy interrupts Eva Khatchadourian’s (Tilda Swinton: Chronicles of Narnia) exciting life of travel and extravagance, she reluctantly settles down to play the roles of wife and mommy. It’s not a believable role for Eva. She doesn’t like Kevin, her son, (Jasper Newell), and he,...

Article - Movie Reviews; by DIana Beechener - 4/5/12

Mirror Mirror

Sword fighting, dwarves, lush visuals and not a script in sight

Once upon a time, a movie mogul imagined it was time for another adaptation of Snow White. In a fairytale world, this would mean a beautiful production with excellent performances. In reality, what we got was a poison apple: Beautiful on the outside and deadly dull beneath the surface. The story, which is a mishmash of several fairy tales, follows Snow White (Lily Collins: Abduction), a princess who is confined to her castle bedroom by her cruel stepmom (...