Checking in with Avery Lawrence

 Tell us about your day job.  My day job is my studio called The POMP, located in Random Row Books. I call it a studio and print shop. I will have screen printing equipment and hopefully other stuff soon, but right now there’s a screen print station, a computer, lots of drawing and painting materials, […]

Mao's Last Dancer; PG, 117 minutes; Vinegar Hill Theatre

Come to think of it, Mao’s Last Dancer is just the movie you’d expect from seeing ballet star Cunxin Li’s memoir adapted for the director of Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford) by the writer of Shine (Jan Sardi). Not that it would ever occur to you to expect such a movie. But here it is, […]

"No Ordinary Family," "The Tenth Inning," "Law & Order: Los Angeles"

“No Ordinary Family”  Tuesday 8pm, ABC If you liked The Incredibles or The Fantastic Four (the comic series, not the crappy movies) you’ll probably dig this. The Powell family is the picture of modern American malaise. Father Jim (Michael Chiklis, “The Shield”) is having a borderline midlife crisis, mom Stephanie (Julie Benz, “Dexter”) is a […]

The Town; R, 125 minutes; Regal Seminole Square 4

 Early on in The Town, we see Ben Affleck in a Boston Bruins jacket. Then we see him in a Red Sox jacket. But no Celtics, no Patriots. What, not a fan? Or is it that hockey and baseball actually do figure in to the plot, and this is Affleck’s idea of foreshadowing? Rebecca Hall […]

“Glee,” “Running Wilde,” “Undercovers”

“Glee” Tuesday 8pm, Fox A pop-culture backlash is imminent, if not already here, and with good reason. While “Glee” has many wonderful qualities—great cast, novel idea, crack-addictive musical numbers—it has giant, glaring flaws. The characters are almost all caricatures, the plotting ranges from the maudlin to the nonsensical, and the showrunners have the narrative focus […]

Fall's flicks

Wait. Summer’s over? Again? How the hell does this keep happening? Can’t something be done? Well, why don’t we just keep going to the movies anyway? Here’s a handful of films that’ll be playing this fall. M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil. Devil. (Opening September 17; with Chris Messina) If there’s anything worse than being trapped in […]