Horse Sense: “The authors really know their horses. This is a horse-lovers book, a real thriller that has opened my eyes to fraud in the high stakes world of championship horses.”
The Coup Against Sovereignty
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Ed Rampel: The history of the Hawaiian holocaust begins in 1778 with Cook’s voyages, his death at Kealakekua Bay, and the British reprisal. Protestant missionaries from New England arrived in 1820, filling a cultural vacuum created by the breaking of the pre-contact religion’s Kapu system in 1819.
The Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement
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Ed Rampell: A century after the deposing of Queen Liliuokalani, these Polynesians have become an oppressed, landless, and often homeless, minority in their own ancestral homeland. Yet, a revived Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement is fighting for native land and cultural rights.
The Children Who Feed Us
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Dick Price: The documentary “The Harvest/La Consecha” puts a human face on the 400,000 children who help harvest America’s crops as migrant farm workers season after season.
The Poor of New York: Old-Fashioned Melodrama New Again
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Ed Rampell: Although, as this highly recommended play rightfully reminds us, poverty – then and now – is serious business. Greed was not good when perpetrated by Wall Street’s Gordon Gekkos of 1837, or today.
This Week in Hollywood Progressive
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This week’s articles from Hollywood Progressive, starting with “Between Raul’s Cuba and Obama’s U.S.A.” and “Note to GOP Candidates: Stick to ABBA Songs.”
A Hotel, A Phone Number, and a Song
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Michael Sigman: But while New York — and the nation — are obsessed about whether a certain cultural center should go up in lower Manhattan, few noticed that the Penn Plaza plan will bring down the legendary Hotel Pennsylvania.
The Last Dance: Prom Night in America
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Walter Brasch: Our children, who are still a part of the extended “Me First Generation,” are spending on a social event that, for some, may be a prelude to a $35,000 wedding in a year or two.
Sports Without Money?
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Steve Hochstadt: Without money and coaches promoting seriousness, the players are able to indulge a sense of fun. The play is hard, but silliness is everywhere else, beginning with team names
Roxie Watson Band Honors Bluegrass Legend Hazel Dickens
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Georgianne Nienaber: Two days after Dickens’ death on April 22, the Atlanta-based, five-piece Roxie Watson band took the stage in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and offered a second-set tribute of an original song dedicated to coal miners, the poor, the dispossessed, and the working women that Dickens so passionately championed.
Defying Racial Stereotypes
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David Love: Given the paucity of positive images of Arabs out there, no single film can be all things to all people. And no film by itself can articulate the full breadth of the occupation or the Mideast conflict. But this is a good start.
From Holocaust Survivors to Hollywood Thriver
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Ed Rampell: Producer’s rep Page Ostrow represents independent feature films that are entertaining and films of conscience, including the first documentary about what led to Egypt’s historic revolution.
Anton Chekhov: A Man for Our Times
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Walter Moss: All this interest in Chekhov is nothing new. One could argue that no other writer had more influence than he on modern drama and short fiction, and some would go much further.
What Happened to Our Money? Oliver Stone Returns to Wall Street
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Robert Brent Toplin: More than any other current Hollywood director, Robert Stone has dramatized American political, social, and economic history of the past fifty years.
Hitler-arious: The Leftist Was a Tramp
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like many other productions at the fabled Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse, the stellar Limelight is Broadway bound for glory.
Getting Stoned with De Niro
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Ed Rampell: Will moviegoers feel they’d rather not feel so all alone, and that everybody must get Stone-d?
“Voices” — What a Sizzling Saga
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Ed Rampell: Voices: A Legacy to Remember does have a memorable story combined with snazzy costumes, great foot stomping choreography and finger snapping music, from traditional Negro Spirituals to Gospel to Jazz,
Barry Munday: Sex Has Lost the Sexual Revolution
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Ed Rampell: Writer/director Chris D’Arienzo’s Barry Munday is a droll sex comedy minus sex with a gifted ensemble cast that’s extremely enjoyable to watch.
Il Postino: Going Postal
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Ed Rampell: Going postal: A rare work of art with working class heroes who are Communists, luminously, imaginatively brought to life onstage by a creative collective of talents worthy of Neruda’s poetry.
Mozart’s Sublime Class Struggle, Cross-Dressing Romp Triumphs at L.A. Opera.
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Ed Rampell: Every once in a while there’s an uplifting work of art that makes one feel glad to be alive. L.A. Opera’s exuberant production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1786 The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), conducted by none other than Placido Domingo himself, is one of those rare artistic experiences that enable audiences to walk on air and be grateful to be living, if only so they can experience such a rapturous, joyous vision and affirmation of life.
“La Razón Blindada”–Theatre of Confinement and Liberation
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Diane Lefer: For those unfamiliar with contemporary experimental theatre from Latin America, Vargas’ work is a fine introduction with its stylized performances, heightened language, philosophical concerns, and its exploration of the dynamics of power.
Wall Street: Oliver Stone’s Das Kapital-ist
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Ed Rampell: Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a bold, visually stunning movie and the best critique of the capitalist system and its 2008 financial meltdown since Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.
Break The Whip — A Spicy Theatrical Gumbo
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Ed Rampell: Break the Whip. A theatrical people’s history of the United States according to Tim Robbins and the Actors’ Gang.
The Catering Doula
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When my daughter told me she was planning the birth of my soon to arrive grandchild, I expected her to tell me that she was going to use a mid-wife but she told me no, she was going the conventional route. She planned to deliver in a hospital with a doctor, the way all of the women in my family have done for the past 100 years except that she was going to use — here’s the new term — a “doula”.
Waiting For Lefty: The Wait Is Over
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Ed Rampell:: The wait is over, and Theatre West’s revival of Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty is the most important play currently being presented in L.A., and possibly the best production of 2010.
Two Civil Rights Movies Find the Cost of Freedom
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Ed Rampell: The documentary Neshoba and musical Bran Nue Dae remind us of how far we’ve come – and, like Willie en route from Perth to Broome – how far we still have to go before we overcome and that Brand New Day of equality dawns.
“Ruined,” But Not Forever?
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Dick Price: “Ruined,” tells the improbably uplifting story of a tawdry haven from an unimaginably cruel world where soldiers and the rebels they fight routinely rape, mutilate, and murder women for sport.
Richard Schickel’s Clint: A Retrospective
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Jim Cullen: Clint Eastwood is, finally, an inspiring figure in his demonstration of the value of hard work for its own sake, and the hope, whether realized or not, that it might also have value for others.
A Smeller for the Empire: Gimbling in the Wabe
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Gary Corseri: My house is foreclosed on, my job is outsourced, and my wife runs away with a banker. So…,I figure there’s nothing left to do but pack up the old mini-van, head on down to New Orleans and start a new life as a singer of blues. My border collie, Woof, rides shotgun, his handsome muzzle sticking part way out the window.
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