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Scenes from the “This Is Spinal Tap” Cutting-Room Floor
In 1982, I began shooting an almost entirely improvised film,“This Is Spinal Tap,” which also happened to be my first as a director. It transformed my life and the...
Racing Mount Pleasant Makes Quiet Emotions Sound Grand
The Frank O’Hara poem “Katy” features seven lines of self-assessing declarations. It is the fifth line that I get the most mileage out of: “I am never quiet, I...
Why Embracing Constant Growth Is My Key to Happiness
I’ve come to realize that stagnation is my worst enemy. The thought of looking up two or three years from now and seeing that I’ve been doing the same...
“Eden” Is a Desert-Island Thriller That Despoils Itself
The new movie “Eden” features bursts of foul temper, wild sex, grisly violence, and nihilist ideology—a departure, you might say, for Ron Howard, a director whose cinematic disposition can...
The Vibrant, Disappearing World of India’s Photo Studios
The Jagdish Photo Studio in Manori appeared to Ketaki Sheth as a kind of apparition. A photographer from Mumbai, Sheth owns a home in the coastal village, about a...
A Merry and Rambunctious “Twelfth Night” in Central Park
On the Saturday evening that I saw “Twelfth Night, or What You Will,” the sole production of the Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park summer season, a raccoon scurried...
“Splitsville” Plays Infidelity for Laughs; “A Little Prayer” Shows What’s Really at Stake
In the studiedly rambunctious comedy “Splitsville,” Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin play a pair of homewreckers. The home, a beachside vacation pad with natural-wood siding and floor-to-ceiling windows,...
Embracing the Ugly Truth Will Set You Free
Curiosity leads us to truth, but that truth isn’t always pretty. In fact, it’s often a nightmare—raw, ugly, and exposing. When we face our deepest truths, we confront parts...
How To Cope With The Aftermath Of A Surgical Error
“After all these years, why has patient safety not improved?” So starts an editorial by Helen Haskell, president of the nonprofit group Mothers Against Medical Error. A mother who...
The Sloppy Joe Makes a Kicky Comeback
Few words in the English language have the onomatopoeic satisfaction of “slop.” Its opening consonants evoke sludge and slipperiness, the round “O” and smacking “P” the liquid wallop of...
