review

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CINDERELLA brings magic to Fox – By Cate Marquis –   The Fox Theater brings a magical end to the holiday season with “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” a charming, funny musical that combines hummable tunes and a more modern take on the familiar tale, on stage from Dec. 27 to 31. This…

THE KING AND I enchants at Fox – By Cate Marquis –   THE KING AND I is a royal treat, a holiday season gift to musical lovers from the Fabulous Fox Theater, now playing until Dec. 10. There is something extra special about seeing this lovely Lincoln Center revival, which won four Tonys, of…

In THE BODYGUARD, cheese factor is high but Whitney fans won’t care – By Cate Marquis –   Whitney Houston fans can relive her biggest movie hit and thrill to her music in THE BODYGUARD, on stage at the Fabulous Fox theater, Oct. 3 – 15. The cheese factor is high in this show but…

– By Cate Marquis – Director Stephen Frears’ funny, charming VICTORIA AND ABDUL was inspired by a real event late in the life of Queen Victoria, when the aging British monarch had her mood brighten by the arrival of a visitor from India, much to the dismay of her advisers and her son, the crown…

  – By Mark Glass – Those of us old enough to remember the highly-publicized 1973 tennis matches between Bobby Riggs and the top two professional women will find this dramedy treatment of those lives and times highly entertaining…as were the events when they unfolded. Younger viewers may be surprised by how drastically our culture…

– By Cate Marquis – When divorce laws loosened and sexual mores changed in the ’60s and ’70s, there was a spate of “why marry” films. Although they had contemporary settings, the comedies generally followed the outline of 18th century bedroom farce, with warring couples, bed-hopping and true love winning in the end. Director/writer/star Lake…

– By Cate Marquis –   MENASHE is a heartfelt Yiddish-language drama about a widowed Hasidic Jewish father man trying to regain custody of his son. Director Joshua Weinstein gives us an intriguing glimpse inside New York’s Hasidic community, although it is not always an affectionate one. Still, this is an excellent little film that…

– By Mark Glass –   THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD has all the first-rate action and humor of Deadpool without needing to know superhero lore to get the jokes. After many films, the first time I truly enjoyed a Ryan Reynolds performance was in last year’s hilarious spoof of all things Marvel and superheroesque, DEADPOOL. He…

– By Mark Glass –   LOGAN LUCKY’s redneck variation on Ocean’s Eleven and other slick caper flicks makes crime pay – at least for the viewers. If light-hearted heist films like OCEAN’S ELEVEN or THE ITALIAN JOB (either the originals or re-makes of both) were stripped of their glamorous settings and star power, this…

– By Cate Marquis –   Charming and warm, the Israeli comedy “The Women’s Balcony” entertains but also captures an appealing feeling of community, and even family, that being part of a religious congregation can bring. It is no small feat. That sense of a close, happy congregation was inspired by screenwriter Shlomit Nehama’s own…