13 July 2016

The music and the cinema and the theater

Last month was full of the arts...

Music: Sat 4 Jun we went to see ATL Collective performing OK Computer at Terminal West. Notable was the harp showcased in several of the songs and the choir of eight or so accompanying. It was a good balance of authenticity and variation. Next Sat 11 Jun was the ASO season finale with Beethoven Symphony No. 7 and Brahms Symphony No. 2. Andre Watts was to have performed the Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto but canceled due to back problems. I have great guilt about not going as frequently as we used to (~10-15 shows a season), and this concert made me wish I'd act on that guilt. Next season!

Cinema: The week of the 12th started with The Lobster [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes | 4/5 ] at Landmark. The Greek director, Lanthimos, made one of my favorite films, Dogtooth, and this was cut very much from the same weird. Next were two older "classic" films at the Plaza: Zardoz and Showgirls (which I had first seen only a year ago). Zardoz was... both horrible and smart-ish? It reminded me of The Man Who Fell to Earth with its mix of bad acting yet original ideas. I had seen Man Who Fell recently at Landmark and, in my post-research, got interested enough in the author Walter Tevis that I got two of his books: The Man Who Fell to Earth and Mockingbird. The latter depicts a future in which robots rule over the drugged, illiterate humans. Cf. Bacigalupi's story "Pump Six" depicting a similar and similarly bleak future.

Theater: We lucked out finding out about a staged reading of James Joyce's Ulysses at Shakespeare Tavern on 15 Jun, performed by Aris. Years ago I got a couple hundred pages in the book and failed, so seeing this was a cheat but very rewarding. If they don't perform it again, it is worth seeking out elsewhere. The last speech by Molly Bloom was emotional and outstanding. Also lucky to hear about West Side Story at Cobb Energy Center on 26 Jun, performed by Atlanta Lyric Theatre. My first time seeing it live! There's such social relevance in this today--immigrants treated as troublemakers, poor people pitted against minorities, police abusing power, and an overloaded social net)--that it should be performed more frequently.

[ posted by sstrader on 13 July 2016 at 8:33:57 PM in Cinema , Concerts ]