“The River” Tuesday 9pm, ABC You might recognize the name Oren Pell if you’re a fan of the Paranormal Activity series of films. Inspired by The Blair Witch Project, writer-director Pell took a modest budget and made a fortune out of “found-footage” film. He’s taking a similar approach with this new drama/horror series about a […]
Meet Joe Carnahan, survivalist. Drop this guy unprotected into the lethal tundra of a January release slot and what does he do? Turns it into $20 million, an opening weekend’s top box-office take. Could any other director seem so right for a movie about a group of bruiser oil drillers led by Liam Neeson starving, […]
Watercolors are unruly. Each wet stroke wants to bleed into its own erratic shoreline from the brush’s edge as the pigment sinks to varying depths in the paper.
“I Just Want My Pants Back” Thursday 11pm, MTV They may act like they’re too cool for it, but hipsters need love too. Thus this new so-clever-it-hurts sitcom. The attention-grabbing title stems from lead character Jason (Peter Vack, basically an amalgam of Owen and Luke Wilson), whose favorite pair of jeans go missing after a one-night […]
The latest Meryl Streep showpiece of biographical impersonation is not a Marvel Comics property, mercifully, but a portrait of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who took that office, as the first woman ever to do so, in 1979. Meryl Streep was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher […]
The UVA Art Museum unveiled four new shows earlier this month that cover a breathtaking expanse of ground and make for an enjoyable afternoon of fine art. Curated by Paul Barolsky, Commonwealth Professor of Italian Renaissance Art and Literature, “Master Printmakers: The Italian Renaissance and its Modern Legacy” features engravings, woodcuts, and etchings by artists […]
William Shakespeare’s Richard III is the study of how a politician’s over-developed ego drives the dark deeds he executes towards the attainment of high position. The play itself is a tidy piece of propaganda, according to Ralph Cohen, American Shakespeare Center’s director of mission, who described it as a reinforcement of Queen Elizabeth I’s legitimacy […]
“Touch” Wednesday 9pm, Fox Kiefer Sutherland returns to television with this new drama-mystery from the mind of Tim Kring. You might recognize that name as the creator of NBC’s “Heroes,” which could be a good thing if this turns out like “Heroes” Season 1, or a terrible thing if it turns out like any other […]
Adapted from the 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close evokes the recent literary wave of self–conscious precocity probably begun with Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Such titles, stacking up adjectives and adverbs like stones in fortress walls, have a common angle on grappling with grief: the will to outthink it. […]
Ten minutes north of the Downtown Mall the land changes all at once as the suburbs fade into pastureland. Longhorn cattle chewed the grass stubbornly, looking like they had just stepped out of Lonesome Dove, as I drove to my interview with Michael Coleman, a 23– year-old singer/songwriter whose musical influences bridge the city/country divide […]