A War Bulletin. The ruins–I walk around them 100 years before. Civilization’s tall buildings–crumbling ruins yet to rise. Vachel calls to me, “Don’t give up on my Golden City. The Golden City will rise from the ashes. It is you who holds the flame to Paradise.” I stagger around the city in the magic duskdawn […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture
Knoepfle 7-3-03
oh say can you . . . ring the liberty bell the country’s doing so well forget old tom paine and remember the maine and anything else you can sell ©John Knoepfle 2003
Posted inArts & Culture
Movie Reviews
Terminator 3:Rise of the Machines Yes, Ah-nold is back as the Terminator. This third time around, Schwarzenegger is a bit more willing to make fun of his character, which has become an indisputable icon of our pop culture. The irony is aided by director Jonathan Mostow’s breezy pacing, which plays up the laughs. In Terminator […]
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If the mafia doesn’t exist. . .
The gangster film has made a resounding comeback this year with Road to Perdition and Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Gangs of New York. The genre began in the silent era, but it made its first big splash in the early 1930s with the releases of Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface. All three are still highly […]
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Movie Reviews
About Schmidt Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) is dead inside. He’s been married 42 years and has worked for about as long at the Woodman of the World Insurance Company. At a retirement dinner thrown in his honor, he accepts his colleague’s tributes as if they were death sentences but endures them all, as he has […]
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Movie Reviews
Far From Heaven Much has been made of Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven, his homage to the films of 1950s director Douglas Sirk. Coming to prominence in 1954 with Magnificent Obsession and followed by All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind, Sirk dared to peek beneath the veneer of the American Dream, exposing […]
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Backstage pass
Summer has started on a high note, with some memorable performances so far: Cynda Wrightsman’s “Lizzie Curry” in New Salem’s 110 in the Shade was heartbreaking and moving; and Titanic at the Muni boasted many powerful singers. Now comes Muni Opera’s second show of the season: Big, the Broadway musical based on the hit 1987 […]
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Backstage Pass
Last week the new theater season took off with Rich McCoy’s production of The Hobbit at the Springfield Theatre Centre. The show has three more performances this weekend, January 17-19. Jason Goodreau plays Bilbo Baggins. Goodreau has become one of the most visible talents onstage here, having performed in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat […]
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Bards of the Sangamo 6-26-03
First Light It’s not sunup at Lincoln Greens, the skies are dark and gray. But I’m poised to start my work, on bunkers and fairways. The mowers sweep across the greens, the fairways and the tees. Their eerie lights, their ghost-like shapes, might startle some–not me! You lucky folks who sleep ’till eight, and work […]
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Knoepfle 6-26-03
tory island morning gray morning and a gray sky a sky patched with trailings of light a soft wind weaving the sea under it high hills of donegal carved on the east horizon dark gray hills and darker grays and a puff of white cloud hanging there over errigal ©John Knoepfle 2003
Posted inArts & Culture
Movie Reviews
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle I tried. I really tried to get into the world of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, a place were the laws of physics don’t apply and hot babes survive massive car crashes and explosions without a hair out of place. I did my best to believe director McG is fashioning a new […]
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Bards of the Sangamo 6-19-03
Shirley’s Eyes One misty morning, three visions, pleasant reverberations, came to me– your veiled face, a nocturnal lily blooming in the twilight of my hope, and a silver harp. I couldn’t discern your smile, but your eyes shone opalescent fire, more mysterious than stirred gray embers, ash glow from a burned out star. You sparked […]
