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STEVE VINEBERG

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Prince of darkness

Gordon Willis at the Harvard Film Archive
Gordon Willis, the master cinematographer to whom the Harvard Film Archive pays tribute in a seven-film retrospective beginning this Friday,

By STEVE VINEBERG | November 18, 2009

Sleep No More brings Macbeth to Brookline
Sleep No More , the second entry in the American Repertory Theater’s mini-season of revisionist Shakespeare, is the least orthodox production of Macbeth you’re likely to see. In fact, it’s linked to Macbeth as much by poetic allusion as by narrative — which is to say that it’s a little of both.

By STEVE VINEBERG | October 21, 2009

Brush up your Porter

Kiss Me, Kate at the Lyric
With its supreme Cole Porter score and its robustly entertaining book by Sam and Bella Spewack, the 1948 Kiss Me, Kate is surely one of the half-dozen best Broadway musicals.

By STEVE VINEBERG | September 16, 2009

Monster man and more

James Whale at the HFA
James Whale's career as a purveyor of marvelous film entertainments was brief.

By STEVE VINEBERG | September 08, 2009

Sins of the play

Israel Horovitz returns to Gloucester
The title of Israel Horovitz's Sins of the Mother (through September 13 at Gloucester Stage) is an ironic misnomer.

By STEVE VINEBERG | September 02, 2009

Splendor on the screen

Elia Kazan at the HFA
The arc of Elia Kazan's professional life has its origins in the Group Theatre, where he was trained as an actor and performed in the original 1930s productions of Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty and Golden Boy .

By STEVE VINEBERG | July 29, 2009

What John did and saw

Dillinger and Manhattan Melodrama
In anticipation of the July 1 release of Michael Mann's Public Enemies with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, and as part of its week-long "Classic Gangsters" series, the Brattle is screening two rarely seen films this Sunday: John Milius's 1973 Dillinger and W.S. Van Dyke's Manhattan Melodrama.

By STEVE VINEBERG | June 16, 2009

Dark passage

Film noir and the Production Code at the MFA
The Production Code, Hollywood's notorious self-censorship program, was instituted by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1930, but it didn't go into effect till 1934, when it was administered by Joseph I. Breen.

By STEVE VINEBERG | May 27, 2009

Commedia tonight

David Grimm's Miracle delivers
David Grimm's entertaining The Miracle at Naples , which the Huntington is premiering in a lively production by artistic director Peter DuBois at the Calderwood Pavilion (through May 9), is a commedia dell'arte.

By STEVE VINEBERG | April 21, 2009

Peter Morgan's Frost-Nixon

Keachy
Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon at the Colonial

By STEVE VINEBERG | February 03, 2009

Max Ophüls at the Harvard Film Archive

Plaisir d’Ophüls
Max at the Harvard Film Archive

By STEVE VINEBERG | January 20, 2009

Sweet smell of skill

Alexander Mackendrick at the HFA
Alexander Mackendrick, who's the subject of a tribute at the Harvard Film Archive this weekend, is a somewhat mysterious figure in movie history.

By STEVE VINEBERG | January 06, 2009

Tiger by the tail

The wild and woolly cinema of John Boorman
The wild and woolly cinema of John Boorman

By STEVE VINEBERG | November 18, 2008

Brief fling

Carole Lombard’s nine years of stardom
Carole Lombard rose to stardom in 1934 and was dead by 1942, killed in a plane crash on her way back from selling war bonds; her last picture, Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be , was released posthumously.

By STEVE VINEBERG | October 08, 2008

Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Remembering a movie star who turned himself into a great actor
Paul Newman, who died last weekend at the age of 83, was that rarest of creatures, a movie star who turned himself into a great actor.

By STEVE VINEBERG | October 01, 2008

Buffalo’d Bard

This West doesn’t win the East
It’s nifty that Boston has snagged the world premiere of Richard Nelson’s new play, How Shakespeare Won the West , which opens the season at the Huntington.

By STEVE VINEBERG | September 17, 2008

When men were men

Sam Peckinpah at the Harvard Film Archive
Since Sam Peckinpah’s untimely death at the age of 59, he has acquired such legendary status that it’s startling to remember that he made only 14 films over a period of 22 years.

By STEVE VINEBERG | September 03, 2008

The awful truth

Leo McCarey was better in the ’30s
Among the signal directors of 1930s comedies — one thinks of Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, and George Cukor — Leo McCarey’s name has been largely forgotten.

By STEVE VINEBERG | June 02, 2008

American original

Arthur Penn at the Harvard Film Archive
During the great American renaissance period in movies, Hollywood was in the hands of the counterculture.

By STEVE VINEBERG | January 29, 2008

The Summer with Monika

Sensual rebellion
Harriet Andersson is the title character in this 1953 film, a teenager who combines a scruffy working-class sensuality with a slightly preposterous romanticism derived from Hollywood movies.

By STEVE VINEBERG | January 16, 2008

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