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(05/02/02 5:00am)
In my last article as a News-Letter editor, having helped run the Arts & Entertainment section now for nearly two years, I ask myself in the words of David Byrne, "Well, how did I get here?" It all started in the fall of 2000, when one of my former suitemates, who was working on the News-Letter at the time came to me randomly one day and said that the arts section was desperate for articles that week; knowing that I was an art history major, she wondered if I would be interested in writing. I agreed, somewhat skeptically, and proceeded to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), where I wrote my first review of a modern photographer's retrospective.
(04/25/02 5:00am)
Despite its stellar female star and talented director, Panic Room, which has remained high on the charts since its opening about a month ago, turns out to be a general disappointment.
(03/14/02 5:00am)
Given the events of recent months, the latest offering in Middle-Eastern film-making, Kandahar, could not have come at a better time. What with all the negative press that Afghanistan has been receiving, Iranian writer and director Mohsen Makhmalbaf portrays the country in all its primitive beauty and tragedy. A fictionalized documentary, Kandahar chronicles the travels of Nafas (Niloufar Pazira), an Afghani woman who has been living in Canada since childhood after her family fled Afghanistan. Years later, Nafas returns to the Middle East to find her sister, who was left behind and now living in Kandahar.
(11/29/01 5:00am)
Just in time for the chilling weather comes director Tony Smith's fast-paced thriller, Spy Game, a movie full of action and drama sure to heat up even the more stoic viewers.
(11/15/01 5:00am)
The Charles Theatre, best known as Baltimore's venue for viewing independent films, is having a sudden revival after a few month's lull. Ending the year with a bang (a trend which will hopefully continue into the winter and beyond) the theater is currently showing eight films. All of them are worth checking out, and you have no excuse not to, since it's right down on North Charles Street and students get a discount on all weeknight shows. This week's schedule is as following:
(11/08/01 5:00am)
Imagine the scenario: a member of Baltimore's more underground art scene acquires a '60s-style child mannequin and takes him across the country and around the world, photographing the mannequin in a variety of international settings. Then, to top it off, he makes a musical about the whole enterprise and performs it back in Baltimore.
(11/08/01 5:00am)
It's been awhile since I've felt truly afraid at a movie theater. I think the last time must have been at the midnight screening of Blair Witch Project in the summer of '99. I emerged from the theater, thoroughly shaken, only to find that the entire lobby of the theater suddenly mysteriously decorated with traces of "spells" like those featured in the film. My companion and I were so scared that we had to walk around the grocery store for an hour before we could bring ourselves to go home.
(11/01/01 5:00am)
This weekend, for the first time in several months, I had the opportunity to spend a day in our nation's capitol. Weaving my way through parks of fall leaves in full bloom and monuments to our beloved forefathers, I was kicking myself for not taking this trip more often. Especially for someone intensely interested in the visual arts, Washington, D.C. is a veritable hotbed of culture invested not only in the Smithsonian Institute museums, but also in a number of prominent surrounding galleries. I spent most of the day skipping from museum to museum, not only getting to take in an incredible amount of work but also getting to play tour guide to my best man - I always knew that art history degree would come in handy for something! The following is a run-down of artistic venues worth checking out right now in D.C. Some of them I visited myself, some I can only hope to return to see soon enough.
(10/18/01 5:00am)
One of my personal favorite cultural centers in Baltimore is The Charles Theatre. Not only does the Charles show some of the best independent films emerging in contemporary cinema, they also offer other events such as Cinema Sundays. This Sunday, as part of this series, the theater will be showing Waking Life, the newest effort of director Richard Linklater (The Newton Boys, Slacker, Dazed and Confused), "an animated film that explores the nature of reality and how we separate dreams and consciousness" following the struggles of an "everyman college grad." Even if you're not a fan of animated film, Waking Life is supposed to have an engaging psychadelic/psychological twist. Featuring the voices of Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke (both of whom starred in Linklater's Before Sunrise) and Adam Goldberg, Waking Life has been touring the independent film festival circuit, eliciting great praise from critics and viewers alike. The cost of the event is $15 at the door and includes breakfast, as well as a post-screening question and answer session with guest speakers Skizz Cyzyk and Dan Krovich of the Maryland Film Festival. Doors open at 9:45 am; showtime is 10:30 am.
(10/11/01 5:00am)
At first glance, Sassafras gallery appears to be no more than another weathered storefront on the edge of the Waverly community. Across the street from the bustle of the farmers' market, however, the early Saturday sun glints off the display windows, drawing the eye to the array of color within. Sitting slightly off the beaten path, in the zone between the residential and commercial areas of the community, Sassafras has attempted to do its own thing since its opening last October.
(10/11/01 5:00am)
In the past, there have been certain foods which, upon first taste, I found positively unpalatable. But after forcing myself to try them more and more, the experience improved until I came to a point where I absolutely loved them, even craving them at times. The same can be said about the new Tori Amos album, Strange Little Girls (Atlantic). When, hearing the CD through for the first time, I wasn't overwhelmed by the usual, orgasmic delight that Amos's music tends to evoke from me: I was nearly ready to dismiss it as a failure. However, after taking a week's break from it and giving it another try, I predict that Strange Little Girls won't be leaving my CD changer anytime soon.
(10/11/01 5:00am)
The loveliest little secret is tucked away inside an unassuming apartment building on Canterbury Avenue, right off of University Parkway. Enter into the Ambassador Dining Room, the essence of colonial Indian elegance: antique stained glass windows, plush carpeting, white linen tablecloths and an array of fine wines spread out toward the back of the restaurant. But move past the indoor seating and out to the sheltered gray stone patio in back with a brilliantly lit fountain surrounded by flowers and lush foliage.
(10/04/01 5:00am)
These days, with films largely seeming to follow a pattern of constant disappointment, Himalaya comes as a breath of air, fresh as the mountains on which the movie is set. Not to say that you'll be seeing anything incredibly innovative, as far as actual filmmaking goes, but Himalaya delivers a simple but satisfying plot and effective acting, integrated with masterful, grandiose cinematography and musical score. Together, they provide the sort of the exhilaration of an IMAX documentary combined with the gentle emotionalism characteristic of many foreign films.
(09/27/01 5:00am)
Like so many "independent" films being produced these days, The Deep End, directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, is really a mainstream movie masquerading in the indie garb of its relatively obscure cast, lush cinematography and controversial subplot.
(09/20/01 5:00am)
With a cast featuring four of the most cutting-edge actors in contemporary Hollywood, it is difficult to understand how The Man Who Cried could emerge as such a disaster. However, even if the actors are of top quality, if they are not given an effective script to work with, the audience will fail to be moved in the manner intended. Such is the dilemma of The Man Who Cried. The film was written and directed by Sally Potter, a British filmmaker whose other most recent works include Orlando (1992) and The Tango Lesson (1997), both commendable movies in their own rights. The Man Who Cried could have followed in the same vein; its failing seems to lie principally in trying to accomplish too much at once.
(09/05/01 5:00am)
Even in a city as culturally-diverse as Baltimore, it is not so often that one finds contemporary art that explores the experience of the minority in America without being repetitive or clich. The most recent exhibit at the Maryland Federation of Art Circle Gallery in Annapolis, "Passports," considers the Chinese immigrant's struggles of self-identity and transition in an aesthetic language that reaches out to the viewer in a way that stirs the emotions without losing its intelligence or becoming overly sentimental. All of the works are by the artist Hai-ou Hou (also the curator of the show), who herself left China in the 1980s and experienced all the cultural, social and political difficulties in the passage from one country to another. The multimedia works covering the walls of the small, rustic Circle Gallery are full of an intense energy that moves between high anxiety and tenuous hope that any viewer can connect with, no matter what his ethnicity.