ARTS Picks: The Institute

Street art, anonymous messages and cryptic interactions are all clues in the reality game documented in the indie pop-psych documentary The Institute.

Film review: Oblivion

It may seem strange to suggest that a movie about the survival of the human race doesn’t have high stakes, but Oblivion, a movie about the survival of the human race, doesn’t feel as if it has high stakes. What Oblivion does have is a unified vision, excellent production design, camera work and computer graphics, […]

Fralin Museum’s “Corot to Cézanne” paints a portrait of the collectors

One of America’s great art connoisseurs and patrons, Paul Mellon was quoted as saying that he and his wife “almost never buy a painting or drawing we would not want to live with or see constantly.” Having cut his teeth on father Andrew Mellon’s renowned art collection (which formed the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art), Paul Mellon was graced with an extraordinarily refined eye.

Spy games: Live Arts’ Or, explores the life and loves of Aphra Behn

Liz Duffy Adams’ Or, is Live Arts’ latest offering, a deftly minced hodge-podge of a play, primarily consisting of what may be incompletely described as a retroactively considered Restoration comedy. Now, when was the last time you had a serious hankering for a Restoration comedy? Some ambivalent theater-goers find Shakespeare intimidating and obscure (they shouldn’t, […]

When Art Imitates Pain

Let’s say it’s 2028, and you’ve decided to watch the new film Before The Finish. The plot is based on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three and injured hundreds. Despite such a heavy topic, the film features plenty of comic relief, like the person setting the bombs forgetting to replace the detonator’s batteries. […]