By Pamela Zoslov Louis, the nine-year-old protagonist of The 9th Life of Louis Drax, introduces himself as “the amazing accident-prone boy.” In his short life, he’s been bitten by spiders, hit in his crib by a falling chandelier, electrocuted by a wall outlet, suffered food poisoning and meningitis. Even his birth was violent, claims Louis, […]
Read more "Boy, Interrupted: The 9th Life of Louis Drax"By Pamela Zoslov It’s tempting to analogize the new Wall Street drama Equity to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Both boast of being “firsts” — first woman major-party presidential candidate, first movie about high finance produced, written, directed by and starring women. What both narratives demonstrate is that women can be just as bad as, […]
Read more "She Likes Money: Equity"By Pamela Zoslov The Japanese film Our Little Sister is based on Umimachi Diary (“Seaside Town Diary”), a Josei manga series by Akimi Yoshida. (Josei manga means “comics for women,” and is aimed at older teenage girls and young women.) The highly regarded director Hirozaku Koreeda adapted the series, transforming Yoshida’s serial and its painterly […]
Read more "Our Little Sister: Cherry Blossom Time"Florence Foster Jenkins is having a moment. The wealthy socialite and notably bad opera singer (1868-1948) who didn’t let a lack of musical talent stop her from sharing her “gift” with concert audiences, is the subject of two films this year, the French film Marguerite and now Florence Foster Jenkins, a Hollywood movie starring Meryl […]
Read more "Frightful Nightingale: Florence Foster Jenkins"By Mark Satola In the nearly 23 years since Frank Zappa died a few weeks shy of his 53rd birthday, the iconoclastic musician’s legacy has been the foremost product of the Zappa Family Trust, in essence a cottage industry devoted to the preservation and propagation, under tightly controlled circumstances, of Zappa’s music. The death in […]
Read more "Zappa Unbound: Eat That Question"