Arts & Entertainment

WOODY HARRELSON may be the John Wayne our war in Iraq deserves. If Harrelson’s newest, The Messenger, seems to run off the rails, it may have been intended to be the kind of movie that wasn’t supposed to be on the rails in the first place. Here is an effort to make a small-camera movie about the Iraq war veterans trying to cope with the sorrow and wrath » Read More

SHAKESPEARE may have been wrong when he wrote that the world is a tragedy to those who think and a comedy to those who feel. Peruse the public reaction to the much-laureated Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and it appears to be the other way around. Lee Daniels’ tragedy, which won double awards at Sundance, seems to be elevated to the status of something special by its noteworthy acting. » Read More

BING CROSBY could have put it all in a Christmas song: the rifle that’ll shoot your eye out, the Nehi lamp and the clinker-filled coalscuttle. Bob Clark’s 1983 film of A Christmas Story, through 24-hour screenings on cable, has become essential to the holiday. The stage adaptation at San Jose Repertory Theatre, which starts previews this week, takes different angles on Jean Shepherd’s comedic memoir, with Rep stalwart Dan Hiatt as the adult Ralphie. » Read More

FOR its November presentation, the San Jose Chamber Music Society welcomes the Amernet String Quartet all the way from Florida International University to town. Violinists Misha Vitenson and Marcia Littley de Arias, violist Michael Klotz and cellist Javiet Arias will perform Haydn’s Sunrise Quartet, Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E Minor and Tchaikovsky’s Quartet no. 1 (Accordion). Sunday (Nov. 22) at 7pm; Le Petit Trianon, 72 N. Fifth St., San Jose; $25–$40; 408.286.5111. » Read More

DISMISSING Pirate Radio as a bad film made by bad people is shirking responsibility. It’s an easy shot to describe it as a sinking ship—Pirate Radio tries to top the ending of Titanic with a new Miracle of Dunkirk. But Pirate Radio is handily the worst movie of the year, and that alone gives it some stature, some worthiness of dissection. » Read More

This very witty parody of the Manhattan art world boasts a cast of frauds, surrounding one serious but surly artist, Adrian (Adam Goldberg), a composer of dissonant music who gripes that “harmony was just a capitalist plot to sell pianos.” » Read More

L.A. wobbling on all sides of a mile-deep fissure in the earth, the skyscrapers dancing around its brink or keeling over in slow faints. A stretch limo scoots around these twisting monoliths trying to get to a comfortable cruising altitude; meanwhile, the unquiet earth rises up on both sides of the escarpment until it’s a crescent-shaped motif. Then, the UNESCO World Heritage Site (What? It isn’t? What the hell is up with that?) concrete advertising sign of Randy’s Donuts wheels through the chaos, as if inviting the car to take the proverbial flying you know what at a rolling donut. » Read More

THE CELEBRATED Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) endured a complex and fraught relationship with his homeland. Abroad during the Bolshevik triumph, Prokofiev came back during the 1930s, at the height of the Stalin regime. The government involved itself excessively in the creative output of its prominent artists. Realism was mandated; formalist tendencies condemned. Prokofiev struggled within these confines, tackling nationalist projects, such as his score for Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky and his opera version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In one of history’s ironies, Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin. » Read More

For those who haven’t seen "The Shape of Things," I personally think this is a better way to first experience this play than even Neil LaBute’s version of his own work. He tends to go for harder, more cynical performances, an approach that’s less successful with "The Shape of Things" because it telegraphs too much about the characters and drains them of the sympathy they require to earn real investment from the audience. » Read More

Palo Alto Players trims some crucial dialogue in its new version of Shakespeare classic tragedy of star-crossed lovers. » Read More