Computers are everywhere these days. We use them at work, they hide in our pockets in the shape of phones, and we’ve even seen them beat some of our smartest human minds on “Jeopardy.” But in the musical world, technology can be thought of as the enemy. Outside of certain styles of music, computer processing […]
Comedy
Posted inArts & Entertainment
REVIEW: The Onion at UR
Two staffers from satirical newspaper The Onion gave a presentation at the University of Rochester’s Strong Auditorium Thursday night, and not surprisingly, hilarity ensued. Head Writer Seth Reiss and Features Editor Cole Bolton discussed the “history” (I use that term loosely) of The Onion, some of the most famous headlines it has printed over the […]
Posted inCulture
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Matt Griffo
The First Niagara Rochester International Fringe Festival’s second year is here, and it seemed like a fitting way to start it off was with one of my favorite acts from last year, Chicago-based musical comedian Matt Griffo. It’s even more fitting given that Fringe is actually a homecoming of sorts for Griffo, who originally hails […]
Posted inCulture
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: The Big Vaudeville Hook Comedy Hour
My first night at the 2013 Rochester Fringe Festival started in the Spiegeltent (in a word: fabulous) for the premiere of Cirque du Fringe. I won’t go into detail since Adam Lubitow did a great job reviewing it for us (insider knowledge: I’m the one who didn’t care for the emo clowns). All I will […]
Posted inMovies
“Austenland”
Be it in novels, on television, or in the movies, love stories in popular culture have always had the (perhaps unintended) effect of creating unrealistic expectations of what romance should be. It’s this tendency that makes the genre so ripe for a good satirical takedown every now and again. Deflating these idealized notions of love […]
Posted inMovies
“The Family”
The Mafia penetrates American life so deeply and fully that the organization provides the subject for both gangster films and comedies (mobedies?). Although the mob’s traditional business enterprises — robbery, drugs, prostitution, gambling, extortion, political corruption, etc., etc., usually accompanied by violence and bloodshed — hardly qualify as material for laughs, some writers and filmmakers […]
Posted inMovies
“In a World…”
The curious title of “In a World…” comes from a repeated phrase, the opening words of the voiceover introduction of a series of amazon-warrior films, which the characters refer to as a “quadrilogy.” In a sense the whole movie revolves around those words, which come to accumulate more meanings as the story progresses through a […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
INTERVIEW: Marc Maron
Comedian Marc Maron has sometimes had trouble fitting in over the course of his two-decade career. He’s had problems with drugs and alcohol, two failed marriages, and a radio show that got cancelled. But for a Fringe festival, Maron may be the perfect fit. A few years ago, with no prospects on traditional media and […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“Family Secrets”
In the one-woman show “Family Secrets,” currently on stage at the Downstairs Cabaret at Winton Place, actress Carolyn Michel portrays five different members of one conventionally unconventional family as they struggle to relate to one another and find happiness within their own lives. Originally performed by actress Sherry Glaser and co-written by Glaser with her […]
Posted inMovies
“The World’s End”
There will always be an England, at least as long as there’s a PBS, and as long as the Brits continue to mine one of their greatest natural resources, eccentricity. Trust an English filmmaker to spin some contemporary popular genres in a different direction, as Edgar Wright did a few years ago in “Shaun of […]
Posted inMovies
“I’m So Excited”
With a hard-earned reputation for flirting with outrageous and comical interpretations of sex, the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar demonstrates in his new movie, “I’m So Excited,” that the outrageousness and the comedy, without wit and invention, cannot sustain an entire film. A late work in a reasonably prolific and quite successful career, the picture seems […]
Posted inMovies
“The Way, Way Back”
It’s been a big year for films of the “and nothing was ever the same after that summer” genre. Between “Mud,” “The Kings of Summer,” and now “The Way, Way Back,” teenage boys have been coming of age all over your multiplex. (I swear I didn’t mean to make that sound quite so filthy…) If […]
