by | Dec 24, 2024 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Sonic (Ben Schwartz) and Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Cinemark Buckland Hills 18 XD and IMAX
Manchester
Dec. 23, 2024
This review contains spoilers
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had great expectations to live up to given the bar the previous two movies set. Not only does it clear that bar — it sets a new standard for family moviesl.
by | Dec 23, 2024 4:12 pm | Comments (3)
Santana Brightly's “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are."
A camera, held by a man in a hoodie, dominates a scene of seeming chaos. Two more hands help hold it up. Someone else’s finger rests on the shutter button. Still another hand shifts the lens. Look more closely and virtually everyone in the crowd is shooting pictures.
The piece, “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are” by Santana Brightly, was among the works spotlighted at the opening of an exhibit on Saturday at Stetson Library. Santana, a seventh-grade student at Hamden’s Sahge Academy, produced the piece while taking part in a month-long graphic arts workshop in AI Art this summer at Stetson.
Continue reading ‘Stetson AI Art Exhibit Beams Light On Future’
by | Dec 23, 2024 12:56 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Ian Wollman with his finds, especially excited for The Jewish Guide to the Internet.
The People of the Book are getting rid of a few — and for one day you could get them wholesale, as many as you could stuff into a bag.
Continue reading ‘Jewish Historical Society Downsizes To Digitize’
by | Dec 23, 2024 9:33 am | Comments (3)
Lucy Gellman/ Arts Paper Photo
Students take the stage for bomba at the Puerto Rican Fest on the Green.
In a restaurant, art about environmental catastrophe. A music show in a bike shop. A tap-dancing demonstration in a bakery. A full-fledged musical in a transformed gymnasium. An opera in a museum.
From large, multi-organization efforts to team-ups between artists and local businesses, in 2024 New Haven saw a lot more collaborations across its arts scene.
by | Dec 20, 2024 10:01 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery photo
A true New Haven circuit board melds music and apizza.
Donato Biceglia of Dual Stage Amplification has been making and repairing amplifiers, guitar pickups, pedals, and other music gear for years out of his Erector Square space. He’s expanding his business now by rolling out a couple new pedals, among them a compressor and a phaser, all embedded with New Haven-specific messages burned right onto the circuit boards he uses for his gear.
by | Dec 20, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Nu Haven Kapelye's David Chevan, Will Bartlett, Dana Astmann perform at WNHH FM.
December holiday music was in free swing — in Yiddish.
by | Dec 20, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (2)
Alex Lussenko's Quartet at Black Eyed Sally's
The Alex Lossenko Quartet
Black Eyed Sally’s Southern Kitchen and Bar
Hartford
Dec. 18, 2024
Jazz is such a versatile genre that each band seems to have a different lead instrument.
by | Dec 19, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (24)
5 demolished buildings to be repurposed as brick mural, on ground floor of new Yale drama building at Crown & York.
Yale won a key city approval for its plans to construct a new seven-story drama school and Yale Repertory Theater building — at a downtown corner where the university intends to demolish five existing buildings, and then incorporate the brick wreckage into a new mural.
by | Dec 19, 2024 7:00 am | Comments (0)
Two friends help each other skate on the wet ice
Winterfest Hartford
Bushnell Park
Hartford
December 18, 2024
Winterfest is the free ice rink located in Bushnell Park, right next to the Pump House Gallery. In its 14th year, Winterfest begins the day after Thanksgiving and runs through the first week of January. Almost 40,000 people come out to skate in the six weeks the rink is open.
The slightly warmer-than-average day had transitioned into a drizzly evening by the time I made it to the rink, but I knew people would be out skating regardless. Winterfest has been an unmitigated success since its inception, and the small but dedicated crowd skating in the rain represented newcomers holding onto each other for dear life, and veterans zipping along the ice and hydroplaning across the puddles that were forming.
by | Dec 18, 2024 9:45 am | Comments (0)
Constance LaPalombara
New Haven 1 (Harbor).
It’s a misty day and there aren’t a lot of details to go on — no buildings or inland rock formations as landmarks. But because of painter Constance LaPalombara’s eye for including the right and necessary details, the scene is recognizable if you’ve ever been along the shore in, say, Morris Cove, and looked northward into the mouth of New Haven Harbor. With the defined sense of place comes a deeper appreciation for what LaPalombara is doing. She’s not capturing every detail, but she gets the details that matter. She grounds the viewer in a specific spot and then doesn’t just paint what the viewer might see through a camera lens. You could say she paints the atmosphere itself, the feeling of the air; if you concentrate enough, you can almost feel it.
by | Dec 18, 2024 7:30 am | Comments (0)
Brothers Sergei and Dmitri (Fred Hechinger).
Kraven the Hunter
Apple Cinemas Xtreme
Hartford
Dec. 15, 2024
By the time I made it to the theaters on Sunday to see Kraven the Hunter, which had just released on Friday, the rumors had already started.
Continue reading ‘Ignore The Pans: Kraven Is Worth The Hunt’
by | Dec 17, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (0)
Matt Wilson.
Drummer Matt Wilson had much to say at Firehouse 12 on Friday night, but there was one word he used the most. He used it when bassist Paul Sikivie unfurled a series of ideas on his instrument, again when Sikivie and reeds player Jeff Lederer played as if they were talking, again when all three of them executed an elegant turn of phrase. Again and again, that word was “beautiful.”
by | Dec 16, 2024 9:31 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Who's your Daddy Krampus?
Eleven musical acts, two comedians, and everybody’s favorite horned holiday folk creature joined together on Saturday to celebrate Punxmas, the annual celebration of punk music and community in honor of the season.
The Cellar on Treadwell, all decked out in flashing lights and garland, hosted the event’s ninth year, which began at 2 p.m. and ran well into the evening. According to musician Jeremy Zombii, Punxmas organizer and proud champion of the punk community, his main goal was to bring everyone together for “tons of fun,” especially after a couple of years of the scene being on the quieter side.
by | Dec 16, 2024 7:15 am | Comments (0)
Hartford Has It! Tree by the Hartford Business Improvement District
Festival of Trees and Traditions
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
Dec. 13, 2024
It’s Christmas time, so that means that it’s time for the annual Festival of Trees and Traditions at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.
by | Dec 13, 2024 11:42 am | Comments (2)
Paul Bass photos
DETROIT — A crowd in suits and gowns (pictured above) mingled below arched windows, 27,000-pound cast-iron chandeliers, and a 54-foot-high Guastavino tile-vaulted ceiling, atop “original Tennessee rose-colored marble” floors, to celebrate the rescue of an architectural marvel — and a new day for their city.
by | Dec 13, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (0)
Altered Futures.
This month there’s a small stretch of forest in City Gallery on Upper State Street — evergreens, ferns, moss — surrounded by a patch of dirt. It might take a moment to see that the plants aren’t rooted in the dirt, however. Rather, they’re planted in a woven aluminum boat, redolent of an ark. It will allow them to leave the gallery alive; maybe it will protect them from what’s coming.
Continue reading ‘Artists Widen The Frame On Climate Change’
by | Dec 12, 2024 9:47 am | Comments (0)
Merik Goma
As I Wait, Untitled 6.
A man stands in front of the bathroom mirror in a towel. He’s just getting in the shower, or just getting out. At first glance it might appear he’s shaving, or putting on cologne. But the object in his hand isn’t a razor or a bottle. It’s something else. And maybe that’s when you also notice the sink is overflowing with fruit. “Some people may not recognize it as an old fire extinguisher,” artist Merik Goma said of the object the man is holding, or “they may be drawn to the fruit.”
“Where is he going? What is that thing supposed to be? Is it a symbol? Is it literal?” Goma said. “It can mean a lot of things.” And that’s part of the point. Goma starts the story. It’s up to us to finish it.
by | Dec 12, 2024 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Matthew Murphy Photo
Jamaal Fields-Green as the King of Pop in MJ.
MJ
Bushnell Center for Performing Arts
Hartford
Dec. 11, 2024
If you ever want to judge the quality of a live performance, listen to the way the audience raves about it afterwards.
by | Dec 11, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Baub Bidon: "We didn't sue another rapper, we just battled."
On Friday, Free 2 Spit celebrated the completion of its 20th year holding down an open mic for New Haven’s spoken-word scene at the New Haven Peoples Center on Howe Street, with a night that drew newcomers, seasoned New Haven-based poets, and voices from one state over alike to share the mic and their words, heating up a wintery night.
by | Dec 11, 2024 8:14 am | Comments (0)
by | Dec 11, 2024 7:59 am | Comments (2)
Matthew McConaughey as Cooper in Interstellar.
Interstellar
AMC Plainville 20
Plainville
Dec. 9, 2024
Interstellar is a movie of layers. It tells the story of the end of the world, the main character’s redemption and the relationship between a father and daughter all simultaneously. The main gist is that Earth is becoming uninhabitable, and Cooper (Matthew McConaughey, showing exactly why he’s a leading man) must undertake an impossible mission to find a new home for humanity. Meanwhile, his daughter Murph (played by several incredibly talented actresses-young Murph is Mackenzie Foy; middle Murph is Jessica Chastain; old Murph is Ellen Burstyn) is attempting to save the world in her own way.
Continue reading ‘Romanticized Space Travel Notions Shattered’
by | Dec 10, 2024 8:47 am | Comments (0)
Joan Marcus Photo
Whitney White in Macbeth in Stride.
When we first meet Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s best-known and often-staged tragedies, she seems designed to steal the show. Her speeches are riveting, her emotions keyed up and powerful. When her husband Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis promoted to Thane of Cawdor, arrives home, she delivers more drama, prodding his dithering into regicide, and even shows him how it should be done when it comes to implicating the two guards that Macbeth and his Lady have drugged.
All this Whitney White — in her show Macbeth in Stride, now playing for one week only at Yale Repertory Theatre through Dec. 14 — delivers with musing commentary. Then comes a coronation that looks like it could be featured on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Murderous.” After that triumph, what next for our ambitious queen? As White, who wrote the show and performs the lead (called “Woman”) in the piece, flatly states: “She gets to host a dinner party.”
by | Dec 9, 2024 9:37 am | Comments (0)
Julius Thomas III and Alicia Kaori in She Loves Me.
Two people who have fallen in love through anonymous letters are dealing with one another in person much more than they know — and at first, care to know. Someone else is two-timing it between a co-worker and the boss’s wife. Another man is figuring out just how much he wants, or does not want, to meddle in all this, and another ambitious young man is just trying to get ahead. It’s all happening in the confines of a perfume shop in 1930s Budapest — and in Long Wharf’s production of She Loves Me, which had its Broadway premiere in 1963, that perfume shop is current located, quite impressively, in the transformed gym of a former middle school.
Continue reading ‘Long Wharf Brings Love Home For The Holiday’
by | Dec 9, 2024 9:27 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
The Mercy Velvet Project taps it out at Katalina's.
Going to a bakery for a few cupcakes seems like an obvious choice, but going to a bakery to preview a tap dance-based rock opera seems less obvious. Fortunately, the New Haven arts community has become more and more creative at working together to allow new projects to seed, germinate, and grow.
On Saturday night, Katalina’s Bakery was the latest alternative space used, this time to host a fundraiser for The Mercy Velvet Project, a re-creation of the 1999 album Live in Vain by the band Mercy Velvet in rock opera form.
Continue reading ‘Dancers Tap Into Sweetness For "Mercy Velvet Project"’
by | Dec 9, 2024 7:48 am | Comments (0)
A Century of Songs: Travelers Chorale 100th Anniversary Concert
Bushnell Center for Performing Arts
Hartford
Dec. 5, 2024
The last time I went to a performance of the Travelers Chorale during their spring concert earlier this year, I was blown away by the musical talent on display from a group of people who worked in insurance by day. I promised that I would be there for their next concert, so I was in my seat at 7:30 sharp for their winter 100th anniversary concert.
Continue reading ‘It’s Beginning to Sound A Lot Like Christmas’