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Olga Kern returned to the CSO this weekend, this time to play the Grieg piano concerto under conductor Peter Oundjian. The concert opened with the crowd-pleasing Russlan and Ludmilla Overture of Glinka. As always, the orchestra played well, and Oundjian conducted quite nicely. There was quite a nice

Alban Gerhardt joined the CSO last night for a peculiar program that ran quite long. Joana Carneiro conducted the evening.I did not know any of the four pieces on the program, which is rare. I enjoy finding concerts that include pieces that are new to me, but this program seemed a little slapdash. I

IDES OF MARCH was a complete letdown after watching MARGIN CALL (click for review)  the night before. MARGIN did not win the Spirit for original screenplay as I had hoped (that went to 50/50, which I have not viewed yet), but it did win the Robert Altman award for ensemble cast.  IDES is nominated f

MARGIN CALL is unquestionably one of the best films of the year, yet no one has heard of it. The film is nominated for two Spirit awards tonight, including best first feature, and one Oscar nomination tomorrow for original screenplay. I hope it does well, it is one of the smartest movies I've seen i

HARRY POTTER 7 is the last in a very, very long series of children's films about witches or some such thing. I really don't remember most of the films, in fact, I'm not even sure I saw all of them (although I think I did). The film really ought to come with a recap at the beginning to remind us old

I have not read the novel TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, nor have I seen the well-loved Alec Guinness version (why isn't this on Netflix?), but this movie is a rather dull and and un-involving version of a complex cold war spy story. It's odd that it is so boring as I expected to like it a lot, like

IRON LADY is the story of Margaret Thatcher. I was a little afraid to see it because I had heard so many good things about Meryl Streep's performance, but I hear that about every movie she's in, and I thought the star power might harm the movie.I was wrong, Streep is the best thing about the movie,

BEING ELMO is a nice little documentary about the man behind the mask who created the current incarnation of Elmo. It's a really fascinating look at how a relatively poor kid from Baltimore moved up the ladder of success at puppetry to become one of the most famous characters in the world.It's a fee

FLOWERS OF WAR is the third film I saw this year that I would call a "hybrid foreign film." What I mean is that is is for all intents and purposes a foreign film, except for American involvement that got it made.I recently reviewed SARAH'S KEY here, which is half in English, and half in German. It s