Culture Watch

Dead Shot Mary: A Woman Cop in the Great Depression

by Bruce Chadwick

"Dead Shot Mary" is an informative and highly educational work about the NYPD in the 1930s, when New York was overrun with pickpockets and Mafioso.

Washington Fears Snowden. Hollywood Fears Washington. Is that Why Oliver Stone Made His Movie About Snowden Overseas?

by Richard Rashke

The facts, as we currently know them.

Genius: Composer Leonard Bernstein’s Complex Story

by Bruce Chadwick

"Maestro" is an impressive new biographical one-man show about Leonard Bernstein.

The First Black Othello and Nineteenth Century Racism

by Bruce Chadwick

A play that tells the story of the first black man cast as Othello.  It was in 1833.  And it made white people upset.

The Best of Bogey in New Tribute Film Festival

by Bruce Chadwick

If you are a Bogart fan, the MOMA film fest tribute is for you.

A Day by the Sea, from 1953, Is a Refreshing High Tide

by Bruce Chadwick

The story seems like it took place in America yesterday. This is the land of layoffs, buyouts, half-jobs, downsized workers, forced retirees, interim employment and millions of temps.

The New Ben-Hur Remake Loses the Chariot Race

by Bruce Chadwick

The one thing the remake does right is portray the Romans as far, far more brutal than the 1959 movie did.

"The King and I" Is Back in Theaters for a 60th Anniversary Run!

by Bruce Chadwick

No matter what your politics, it is always good, too, to see Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr dance across the palace floor, taking you into a world of romance and music and hope that existed long ago (but not in present-day Thailand).

A King Who Serves for 400 Years?

by Bruce Chadwick

That's the premise of Eugene Ionesco’s 1962 play "Exit the King." Alas, it doesn't make for a great production.

Goodbye, Gone with The Wind

by Joan E. Cashin

“The Free State of Jones” is a movie for our times.

Women Soldiers: When They Come Home Broken

by Bruce Chadwick

Review of "Ugly Lies the Bone," a play that reveals the stark life of a soldier who comes home from war disfigured, depressed and angry.

America’s Skid Row Will Never Be the Same

by Bruce Chadwick

A review of the latest version of "Little Shop of Horrors."

Three Women Locked in a Washington, D.C. Hotel Room, the 1787 Constitutional Convention and William Shakespeare … Oh, and Miss Georgia, too…

by Bruce Chadwick

A play. Sorta.

The Movie About Reconstruction that You Forgot, or Won’t Take Seriously

by Michael Todd Landis

It’s the 1999 blockbuster flop, “Wild Wild West,” starring Will Smith that has you rooting for the black officer who bags the Confederate baddies.

The Merchant of Venice Meets Rodgers, Hammerstein and Donald Trump

by Bruce Chadwick

Donald Trump in Venice in the early 1600s? You have just got to love this play.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in a Hot New Staging

by Bruce Chadwick

If you can, catch this hot, hot production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

What You Missed If You Didn’t See the Late Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate”

by Ron Briley

Why Cimino deserves to be remembered as America’s Cinematic Marxist Historian of the American Experience.

The Wacky World of William Shakespeare (abridged, revised, edited, whew!)

by Bruce Chadwick

Have a night of blistering fun and go see a play by William Shakespeare. Uh oh. Really? Well, yes, really.

‘To Be or Not to Be’: Shakespeare First Edition Book Goes on Tour

by Bruce Chadwick

400 years later, all the world is still a stage.

Latest Hollywood Trend? Underground Railroad Chic.

by Roy E. Finkenbine

What’s wrong with that? Too often glitz trumps historical fact.