REVIEW: FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS
Ignoring all of its other virtues, Mac Rogers’ play Frankenstein Upstairs certainly deserves special commendation for including such an intriguing program note: Frankenstein Upstairs is set in Brooklyn in the present day. As the action takes place in the same fictional universe as Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the novel and its adaptations do not exist in this play, and the name “Frankenstein” holds no associations … Continue reading REVIEW: FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS
FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS PRE-GAME: THE HONEYCOMB TRILOGY
This week I will be reviewing Mac Rogers’ play Frankenstein Upstairs. Before the review posts tomorrow, I am putting up a series of “Pre-Game” posts, where I talk a little about the Mac Rogers plays I’ve covered before and how perspective figures into each of them. You can read the first part, about Rogers’ play Universal Robots, here. Throughout 2012, Gideon Productions presented the full cycle of … Continue reading FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS PRE-GAME: THE HONEYCOMB TRILOGY
FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS PRE-GAME: UNIVERSAL ROBOTS
This week I will be reviewing Mac Rogers’ play Frankenstein Upstairs, which according to the press materials transplants the Frankenstein story into a contemporary Brooklyn apartment building. As the title suggests, the main characters are Dr. Frankenstein’s downstairs neighbors. This crafty slant doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me; I’ve been covering Rogers’ work for a couple of years now and have found … Continue reading FRANKENSTEIN UPSTAIRS PRE-GAME: UNIVERSAL ROBOTS
REVIEW: Upstream Color
Upstream Color is an undulating new tangle of a film by writer/director/actor/composer/editor/sound editor Shane Carruth, who earned a lot of well-deserved good will with his previous effort, the inside-out time travel story Primer. In terms of scope and subject matter, Upstream Color can function as a kind of secular answer to writer/director Terrence Malick’s deeply religious The Tree of Life. Where Malick pulled the camera way back in time and space to make his point that the human condition is only … Continue reading REVIEW: Upstream Color
REVIEW: The Hangover Part III
– ONE MILD SPOILER – The Hangover Part III is the mostly enjoyable, but also mostly perfunctory conclusion to a trio of comedies that started out in a very true place: examining the way that one guy who no one knows or is really friends with always ends up at a bachelor party, and thus changes the group dynamic in a big way. Part III, however, is essentially a heist movie, dutifully built around moderately staged sky-diving, building-repelling … Continue reading REVIEW: The Hangover Part III
Geoff Klock’s Hamlet Mash Up
Dear Universe – remember how there are references to Hamlet in EVERYTHING? Well, my friend Geoff Klock has done you all a solid and made it his mission to supercut every reference to and version of Hamlet ever committed to film into a 14 minute video that is super entertaining. Continue reading Geoff Klock’s Hamlet Mash Up
Charlie Test
Testing the mobile photo app. Continue reading Charlie Test
Review: Set in the Living Room of a Small Town American Play
Theater Reconstruction Ensemble’s challenging but ultimately rewarding production of “Set in the Living Room of a Small Town American Play” does more than deconstruct the style of the great American dramas from the 20th century. It may sound exhausting, but playwright Jaclyn Backhaus and director John Kurzynowski essentially present a staged rehearsal, which turns out to be an apt forum for meditation on the techniques … Continue reading Review: Set in the Living Room of a Small Town American Play
Thanos as Macbeth
Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
-SPOILERS- What at first seems to be a charming, if standard coming of age in high school story is almost rendered unrelatable by a very dark turn in the third act. Depressed freshman wallflower Charlie (played by a likable frazzled Logan Lerman) who deeply loves his friend Sam (Emma Watson, who is magnetic despite an inconsistent American accent) because she reminds him of his deceased aunt. When Charlie and Sam finally hook up, … Continue reading Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Surreal Time Press 