This story is more believable in the context of Japanese culture, which makes it more enjoyable and meaningful to me. Even the comedic characters seem possible, which the American version didn’t pull off. The one strength I grant to the American movie, though, is that it gives more attention to the impact of the main…

Initially I thought this documentary featured the same palace Ann’s brother Randy, an army Lieutenant, had written to us about, but I think it’s a different Hussein family palace. I don’t regret the choice, though. This film mostly gives a voice to soldiers on the ground near Baghdad, letting them talk (or sing, or rap)…

Eighteen-year-old pianist Natasha Paremski stole this show with her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, as is clear from the Rocky Mountain News review. Jeffrey Kahane surprised me at this performance by conducting without a word, and I realized that I was anticipating the long or short lecture he’s given at the past few…

I had an adverse initial reaction to the hokey, contrived plot and annoying soundtrack of this film, but eventually it won me over. There’s classic Hitchcock suspense-building, and many memorable little touches. The old amusement park scenes are just great. The message here never loses that contrived feel, if anything the movie gets more wrapped…

I’m not sure that it’s even worth critiquing movies dealing with genocide. No matter how intense, I doubt any movie will make a person living a comfortable life know what it’s like to be corralled and slaughtered. It’s easy to condemn the perpetrators of crimes in a movie, and in history, but none of us…

I’ll never be a music critic, I’m just too amazed by nearly every performance I see. This was a CSU faculty recital that Ann, Carol (Ann’s mom), our friend Alan, and I attended after a huge dinner together. Dr. Landreth clearly put a lot of herself into the program, with readings accompanying the pieces in…

The self-deprecating and self-referential style that confronts you from the opening scene hits a little too close to home in its criticisms of itself. It’s not a lost cause though, the characters are entertaining and remind me of people I’ve known, and the actors do a good job with them. Christina Ricci especially does well…

Hey, it’s a noir film with a plotline you can follow and a soundtrack that’s only mildly bombastic! I enjoyed this solid piece, though it irritated me a little that it sounded off like Hemingway wrote it, when really the screenplay just took a scene with a little dialogue from a Hemingway short story, then…

I’m glad we caught this opportunity. Andreas Klein is certainly the highest caliber pianist I’ve seen in a venue as small as CSU’s Edna Rizley Griffin concert hall. His theme for the night was ‘visions’ – short, intense, visually inspired pieces. I was in awe of most them. The Prokofiev series was the only one…

I find it painful to watch a movie that aims high and falls short, probably because it reminds me of my own failings. This film had the potential to be a somber but graceful expression of existential angst, making use of Cassandra-esque characters to illustrate the pain that can be caused by revelations of truth,…