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Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

Ed Rampell: Widely perceived as a hoity-toity elite art form for the 1%, opera often gets a bum rap as stuffed shirts’ sonic sphere, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra gives the lie to this cliché.

Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

Ed Rampell: The Pan African Film and Arts Festival is for Black-themed movies what the Panama and Suez Canals are for international shipping: A vital gateway for the transshipment of, in PAFF’s case, film culture.

Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

Randy Shaw: Thanks to the lead paint that kept these old advertisements from entirely fading, New York City and other cities have a collection of signs – literally – pointing to their cultural heritage.

And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

Michael Sigman: Part of what attracts Americans to President Obama is his equanimity -- he's handled crisis after crisis with a cool intensity that shows he cares but is never overwhelmed by anxiety.

Toussaint Louverture: Viva la Revolution at the Pan African Film Fesitval

Ed Rampell: Every once in a while a stand up and cheer movie comes along that sweeps audiences off of their feet. Toussaint Louverture is one of these breathtaking movies.

Open Source Music: Get Your Hands Out of My Pocket

Derrick Ashong: Ask yourself how a successful, globally renowned artist can work for the same label for two decades and never get paid a royalty on his records sold.

For Colored Girls: Ntozake Shange’s “choreopoem” about African American Women No Shangri La

Ed Rampell: All seven of the Colored Girls appear to have an unresolved, conflicted sexuality. They find some sort of resolution of conflict within a mystical sisterhood -- but that’s still half a people.

Marta Eggerth, Operetta Superstar, Turning 100

Michael Sigman: Marta's gorgeous voice, charming acting and striking appearance attracted filmmakers while she was still in her teens. In 1932 alone, she appeared in seven movies.

Journey 2: Latest South Seas Cinema Offers 3D and IMAX to Da Max

Ed Rampell: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a an entertaining escapist flick co-written by literary kleptomaniacs (including Brian and Mark Gunn) excavating the literary estates of Verne, Swift and Stevenson. (Can you say: "hodgepodge"?)

20th Century: A Screwball Comedy for Any Century

Ed Rampell: Bard Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1930s play and movie versions of 20th Century retain the rat-a-tat repartee of this screwball script, while Michael Lorre’s adept direction maintains the comedy’s madcap pace.

Film

Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

The Pan African Film and Arts Festival is for Black-themed movies what the Panama and Suez Canals are for international shipping: A vital gateway for the transshipment of, in PAFF’s case, film culture. Here are two examples — a challenging documentary and an Oscar nominated animated feature. Dark Girls Bill Duke is best known to [...]

Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

I have always loved the sight of old painted advertising signs on the sides of buildings. Such murals bring history alive, revealing once popular but now forgotten cultural products. In 1997, Frank Jump decided to begin photographing New York City’s fading advertising murals. Jump made photographing old murals his life work after being diagnosed in [...]

Toussaint Louverture: Viva la Revolution at the Pan African Film Fesitval

Every once in a while a stand up and cheer movie comes along that sweeps audiences off of their feet. Toussaint Louverture is one of these breathtaking movies. This two-part, three hour-plus saga about the leader of the Haitian liberation struggle is in the same league, and has the epic sweep of classic biopics, such [...]

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Personalities

Local Reaction to the Tragic Death of Don Cornelius

Tragic Death of Don Cornelius: Can Any Black Man Be Happy? LA Writer’s Project asks ‘What Is a Happy Black Man?’ Los Angeles – “I honor Mr. Cornelius’ business and cultural legacy,” says Peter J. Harris, director of The Black Man of Happiness Project (BMofH). “He tapped the music in us all. But I’m painfully [...]

Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

As a child in the South, I observantly called black people black people. That is until I was corrected by my mother sometime around 1962. She said, “It’s not nice to call people black, we say “colored.” Mom had joined the NAACP in college and knew about these things. I’d been told that black wasn’t [...]

The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina

You are a foul one, Mr. Newt! You double down on race cards with a pile of Vegas loot. to buy the pimps on K Street, who know how to salute… for the open marriage values and the morals of a Newt! Quite low, I’d imagine Oh, you’re a brawler, Mr. Newt! Your anger makes [...]

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Stage

Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

Widely perceived as a hoity-toity elite art form for the 1%, opera often gets a bum rap as stuffed shirts’ sonic sphere, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra (based on a similarly named historical figure) gives the lie to this cliché. Marx and Engels wrote in 1848’s Communist Manifesto that “the history of all hitherto existing [...]

For Colored Girls: Ntozake Shange’s “choreopoem” about African American Women No Shangri La

FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF Theater Review February is Black History Month, a time when those often overlooked finally receive a measure of the recognition they’re due, from the annual Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) to theatrical performances. When Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide [...]

20th Century: A Screwball Comedy for Any Century

There’s no reason to board a streamlined train and chug down (or rather up) to the Sierra Madre Playhouse to see 20th Century – unless, that is, you relish experiencing laugh riots on the live stage. Bard Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1930s play and movie versions of 20th Century retain [...]

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Books

And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. – Albert Einstein I’m no Buddhist. (Then again, neither was the Buddha.) But you don’t have to meditate to see that in satisfying our innate desire to make lists, [...]

The Cult of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits

Jim Cullen, Review of Kent Greenfield’s “The Cult of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits” (Yale 2011) Some readers have compared this book to the work of Malcolm Gladwell. It’s not hard to see why; the core strategy of Gladwell mega-bestsellers such as The Tipping Point — arrestingly simple assertion illustrated with anecdotal [...]

Reflections on Literature: Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers

Have you ever picked up a novel, almost at random, and enjoyed a great read from it? I recently did with Marge Piercy’s 770-page book set in WWII, Gone to Soldiers (1987). It reinforced a point—Literature matters!—I had made almost a year ago in an essay in Hollywood Progressive: “Why Literature Matters.” But Piercy’s novel [...]

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Humor

Occupy!: Does Diction Reflect Conviction?

January 30, 2012 By Michael Sigman Leave a Comment

Occupy! – the 2011 Word of the Year according to the American Dialect Society – confirms Ralph Waldo Emerson’s insight that “Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.” Language maven Ben Zimmer, who chaired the organization’s selection committee, said it was “remarkable how the word itself contributed to the movement’s success.” I’ve been tracking the [...]

The Genetic Reason Some Of Us Are Happier

September 29, 2011 By Michael Sigman Leave a Comment

I once dated a woman who was happy. She slept well, ate when she was hungry and exercised when her body needed it. I had insomnia, ate gallons of chocolate chip ice cream and ran eight miles a day. She felt good when something good happened and bad when something bad happened. I felt anxious [...]

A Hunka Hunka Bernhard Love

August 13, 2011 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

Sandra Bernhard: I Love Being Me, Don’t You? Theatre Review If you love your humor hurled like a drone missile and dripping with irony, then head on down to the REDCAT to achieve your sarcasm orgasm at Sandra Bernhard’s I Love Being Me, Don’t You? Believe you me, Disney has never been like this! When [...]

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For the past several years, Mike Price has graced these pages with some of the finest and certainly funniest writing we have had the honor to publish. Just now, we received notice from his dear friends Wayne and Marsha Williams that Mike has passed away. Here’s Wayne’s letter: Friends, I have very sad news to [...]

Hollywood Progressive

Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

Toussaint Louverture: Viva la Revolution at the Pan African Film Fesitval

Open Source Music: Get Your Hands Out of My Pocket

For Colored Girls: Ntozake Shange’s “choreopoem” about African American Women No Shangri La

Marta Eggerth, Operetta Superstar, Turning 100

Journey 2: Latest South Seas Cinema Offers 3D and IMAX to Da Max

20th Century: A Screwball Comedy for Any Century

Film

Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

Toussaint Louverture: Viva la Revolution at the Pan African Film Fesitval

Personalities

Local Reaction to the Tragic Death of Don Cornelius

Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina

Stage

Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

For Colored Girls: Ntozake Shange’s “choreopoem” about African American Women No Shangri La

20th Century: A Screwball Comedy for Any Century

Books

Reflections on Literature: Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers

Humor

The Genetic Reason Some Of Us Are Happier

A Hunka Hunka Bernhard Love

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Popular This Month

Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

Toussaint Louverture: Viva la Revolution at the Pan African Film Fesitval

Open Source Music: Get Your Hands Out of My Pocket

For Colored Girls: Ntozake Shange’s “choreopoem” about African American Women No Shangri La

Marta Eggerth, Operetta Superstar, Turning 100

Journey 2: Latest South Seas Cinema Offers 3D and IMAX to Da Max

20th Century: A Screwball Comedy for Any Century

Film

Personalities

Stage

Books

Humor

Sign up for the Hollywood Progressive

—-Hollywood Progressive Special Deals—

Support this site with Kachingle!!

Popular This Month

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