Color me conflicted. There were some totally kickass parts of tonight’s S4 finale, but they were sandwiched between a bizarrely timed opener and yet another botched ending. The overarching lesson I’ve learned from this season is that even when the showrunners have all the best material with which to work, they still have a serious […]
Eric Rezsnyak
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“Game of Thrones” Season 4, Episode 9: The Watchers on the Wall
First, apologies for the late blog. I’ve just relocated to a new city and only just got internet access tonight. Next week’s finale blog will be up early the morning after the episode airs. I am sure there will be lots to discuss… For the penultimate episode of the season the showrunners chose to focus […]
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Ports of Call
As you probably remember from building sugar-cube packet boats in third grade, the Erie Canal was an immensely important waterway that helped to define New York State during the 19th and 20th centuries. While the boats and barges that once used the canal as a literal artery of commerce are mostly gone — although boaters […]
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“Game of Thrones” Season 4, Episode 8: The Mountain and the Viper
Another episode, another “Oh, shit!” ending. Expect at least one more of those before we wrap up Season 4, which adapts the second half of Book 3 — easily the best of the series (so far) — and ventures a bit into Book 4 and beyond. In addition to that brutal, jaw-dropping ending, we also […]
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Theater Review: “Sunset Boulevard” at Blackfriars
The dark side of Old Hollywood was apparently on the mind of Blackfriars Artistic Director John Haldoupis when he programmed the theater’s 2013-14 season. It opened with “Me and Jezebel,” which told an inspired-by-real-life story about latter-day Bette Davis. And now it closes with “Sunset Boulevard,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of the Billy Wilder […]
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“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 6 Reunion/Finale: And the winner is…
The good news: the right queen won! The bad news: was it just me, or was basically every part of that reunion totally predictable? It’s times like this where I sincerely feel for RuPaul and the “Drag Race” folks. They gave the fans basically everything they could want in that reunion episode. They crowned the […]
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“Game of Thrones” Season 4, Episode 7: Mockingbird
Watch that last step, Lysa gurl! It’s a doozy! Lysa Arryn’s poorly planned physics experiment kicked off what should be a string of deaths over the next few episodes. I don’t think that’s spoiling anything — people die on this show all the damned time. But by my count we should see at least five […]
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Theater Review: RBTL presents Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”
Disney’s animated adaptation of the French fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” hit movie theaters in 1991. It is an important Disney property for several reasons. It was the first animated film to ever score a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards, and it was also the first Disney animated feature to be turned […]
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The sweet life
For many restaurant diners, dessert is an extra — something to indulge in only when you’re feeling particularly decadent. But for some chefs, dessert is a passion, a calling, an artform. The term “pastry chef” is slightly misleading. It calls to mind flaky phyllo or sticky breakfast sweets, but encompasses so much more. Pastry chefs […]
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“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 6: The RuCap, OR Lessons Learned from S6
The “RuCap” episodes rarely give us much new to digest, and that was the case for the Season 6 edition. It was a highlight reel with a few new scenes (animals!) and quips from past-season queens (I am very concerned about Sharon Needles, who totally bombed tonight). We also got a baffling rundown of the […]
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Theater Review: JCC’s “Young Frankenstein”
A few years back, JCC Centerstage presented “Mel Brooks’ The Producers.” The show packed the house and in some ways raised the bar for what audiences could expect from a splashy, modern musical put on by a community theater. The JCC is currently presenting Brooks’ follow-up show, a musical adaptation of the actor-writer-director’s 1974 comedy […]
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“Game of Thrones” Season 4, Episode 6: “The Laws of Gods and Men”
The bulk of this week’s episode was basically “Law & Order: Westerosi Victims Unit,” a.k.a. the trial of Tyrion Lannister for the murder of King Joffrey. Honestly I wish the entire episode had been devoted to it, because that was some gripping television that told the story far better than the books did. The other […]
