Author: Max Rider

and we, each is both fragmentary and deeply lyrical. Photo: James Matthew Daniel Working with the texts of an exciting, exacting poet and a singer-muse who has inspired almost all of his operatic work, composer Michael Hersch probes the infinite distance at the heart of relationships. Two people embrace, their hands and bodies covered in white clay slip. They smear each other with streaks of the material, temporarily freezing their forms before motion causes the clay to crackle. It’s a striking image—a couple who try to fix one another into objects, only to find that they cannot. This is Michael…

The company of Urinetown. Joan Marcus When it opened on Broadway nine days after the September 11 attacks, Urinetown was my new favorite musical. It had emerged downtown from the New York International Fringe Festival (in which I had participated), aggressively mocking song-and-dance tropes to deliver a bleakly satirical message about society and the environment that boiled down to: “We’re fucked.” Looking back a quarter-century, as the show returns for a limited run with City Center Encores!, I find myself asking: Did I love Urinetown before I actually liked musicals? Was I too ignorant of the joys of the genre…

Lucy Liu in Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp’s “hokey, hackneyed and resounding bore” called Presence. Photo by Peter Andrews/Courtesy of The Spectral Spirit Company In 1988, I saw a terrific psychological thriller called Apartment Zero that was so fresh, surprising, sexy, suspenseful and original that it has haunted me for decades. It was in a class by itself, with hypnotic early performances by Colin Firth and Hart Bochner and a debut screenplay by a young writer nobody had ever heard of named David Koepp. Around the same time, fledgling newcomer Steven Soderbergh directed an acclaimed low-budget independent drama, Sex, Lies, and Videotape.…

and we, each is both fragmentary and deeply lyrical. Photo: James Matthew Daniel Working with the texts of an exciting, exacting poet and a singer-muse who has inspired almost all of his operatic work, composer Michael Hersch probes the infinite distance at the heart of relationships. Two people embrace, their hands and bodies covered in white clay slip. They smear each other with streaks of the material, temporarily freezing their forms before motion causes the clay to crackle. It’s a striking image—a couple who try to fix one another into objects, only to find that they cannot. This is Michael…

Celeste Dalla Porta, Daniele Rienzo and Dario Aita in Parthenope Gianni Fiorito/Courtesy of A24 Paolo Sorrentino has fixated on beauty and youth in past films, but never so overtly as in Parthenope. The Italian filmmaker embodies the male gaze in sprawling tale, which follows a charismatic woman (Celeste Dalla Porta) from her birth in 1950 to present day. Our heroine, named Parthenope after the ancient Greek settlement that is now Naples or perhaps the siren of myth, drifts through her life, often searching and uncertain. She is, as one character remarks, beautiful but with “joyless” eyes.  PARTHENOPE ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars)Directed by:…

The Heart Eyes Killer Courtesy of Sony Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and not long ago that meant romantic comedies and dramas dominating the box office. Since COVID and the streaming boom, however, straight-up romantic comedies (along with comedies in general, save for action blockbusters and kids animation) have become a rarity at the multiplex. Horror, on the other hand, is back with a vengeance—the only genre on which studios both big and small are willing to take risks. Heart Eyes, the third horror-comedy from director and CollegeHumor alum Josh Ruben, does right by both genres. It’s both a pretty…

Cynthia Erivo. Getty Images for Critics Choice After a nearly month-long postponement, the Critics’ Choice Awards are finally here. The awards show, which honors the best in film and television, was originally slated for Sunday, Jan. 12, at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in California. Amid the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, however, the CCAs were delayed and eventually rescheduled for Friday, Feb. 7. The 30th Critics’ Choice Awards are still taking place at the original location in L.A., and for the third year in a row, Chelsea Handler returns as the evening’s host. Presented by the Critics…

(from left) Indiana Woodward, Unity Phelan, Emily Kikta, Ruby Lister, Olivia MacKinnon and Lauren Collett in Paquita. Photo: Erin Baiano New York City Ballet’s Winter 2025 Season at Lincoln Center is full of the usual suspects: edgy neoclassical ballets by Company founder George Balanchine, theatrical dances by Jerome Robbins, cool contemporary ballets including a new work by resident choreographer and artistic advisor Justin Peck and then something unexpected: Paquita, NYCB Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky’s latest work for the Company. To be clear, Ratmansky’s new work is not actually new. It is quite old. Paquita was first created by Joseph…

Clockwise from top left: Ke Huy Quan in Love Hurts; Sydney Park and Selina Ringel in You, Me & Her; Sofia Black-D’Elia in I Love You Forever; Violante Placido and Scott Foley in La Dolce Villa. Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures; Rafael Reynaga; Christine Ng; Courtesy of Netflix Valentine’s Day hasn’t always been a dumping ground for content, but this year it seems like there are dozens of movies coming out around the holiday. From blockbuster rom-coms to quirky indies, early February is apparently the time to release a film. Of these movies, here are five notable releases, some better than others,…

William Christie conducting Juilliard415 and soprano Song Hee Lee. Photo: Rachel Papo In the mid-1600s, a young Italian arrived in Paris and soon transformed the still-evolving art form of opera into something quintessentially French. More than three hundred years later, a harpsichordist born in Buffalo, New York, also came to Paris and had a similarly seismic effect on the performance and appreciation of 17th- and 18th-century French opera. That musician, William Christie, turned 80 in December, and the explosion of gala celebrations honoring him touched down in New York City late last month. Atys, an opera by Florence-born Giovanni Battista…