Shawn Stone — Metroland

Art Beat

by Shawn Stone May 23, 2013

STILL BALLIN’ Last summer’s local indie film sensation was Ballin’ at the Graveyard, a documentary about public-court basketball culture that put local audiences in touch with a fascinating part of Albany culture. It was as ...

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Signifying Nothing

by Shawn Stone May 23, 2013

Perhaps the most intriguing parts of J.J. Abrams’ sequel to his Star Trek reboot of four years ago are the opening and closing scenes. At the beginning, we join the starship Enterprise at the start ...

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A Model Sociopath

by Shawn Stone May 23, 2013

Michael Shannon is both chilling and sympathetic in this based-on-a-true-story crime drama about a hitman with a normal family life. Richard Kuklinski (Shannon) does his day’s work—shooting, poisoning, stabbing, and then dismembering the resulting corpses—and ...

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Dream On

by Shawn Stone May 15, 2013

This is not the “hip-hop Great Gatsby.” Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “great American novel” is remarkably faithful to the spirit of the original. Yes, Luhrmann takes certain liberties with the text and adds ...

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Motion Sickness

by Shawn Stone May 8, 2013

Suddenly, the long-reclusive film artist Terrence Malick, the fellow who went decades without releasing so much as a foot of film, is a whirlwind of activity. Following up on his 2011 Oscar-nominated epic The Tree ...

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Art Beat

by Shawn Stone May 1, 2013

TULIP TIME, ALMOST Though I know you’re excited, Tulip Fest is a week away. Still, it seems worthwhile to make sure a new addition to Tulip Fest is brought to your attention now. And it ...

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Shout, Sister, Shout

by Shawn Stone April 24, 2013

It turns out that it wasn’t just Bob Hope and Ann-Margret putting on shows for the American troops in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The Sapphires tells the story of four young Australian aboriginal women ...

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Si!

by Shawn Stone April 18, 2013

A roomful of clients wait with anticipation for a presentation. A young executive, Rene Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), gravely speaks of what they about to see. It represents, he says, an exact reflection of the ...

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A Green Goodbye

by Shawn Stone April 18, 2013

What happens to us after death? This is not a spiritual question, because this story is not concerned with whether your “soul” will end up in Heaven, Hell or on the garage roof next to that ...

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Apocalypse, Now

by Shawn Stone April 10, 2013

Sally Potter’s film about the decline and fall of an intense lifelong friendship is funny, engaging, wrenching and, ultimately cathartic. In other words, it’s very good. It’s set in 1962 England, a time and place still ...

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Art Beat

by Shawn Stone April 4, 2013

SOLDIER STORIES Beginning Friday (April 5) at 7:30 PM, Classic Theatre Guild will be presenting Charles H. Fuller’s classic drama A Soldier’s Play at the Fenimore Gallery at Proctors (432 State St., Schenectady). This Pulitzer ...

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Two Hearts, One Body, Oy Vey

by Shawn Stone April 4, 2013

Stephanie Meyer turned the vampire-werewolf mythology inside-out in her Twilight books, transforming vampires from undead sexy beasts into smug, well-dressed members of the one-percent, and giving werewolves an unearned aura of Native American cool. In ...

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Unicorn Gangster Sex Candy

by Shawn Stone March 28, 2013

“Sperrring brayke . . . spering brayke for-evah!” Drawling these incantory lines with a Southern accent that’s as thick and baroque as any this side of Matthew McConaughey’s, James Franco neatly sums up the meaning of ...

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Becoming Hitch

by Shawn Stone March 20, 2013

Even more than Olive Films’ extraordinary edition of John Ford’s The Quiet Man, this Criterion Collection restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much is my favorite Blu-ray so far ...

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Classic Hollywood

by Shawn Stone March 20, 2013

“Grand Hotel . . . always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.” This is the stock observation of one Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis Stone), the war-maimed physician-in-residence at Berlin’s opulent Grand Hotel—or, to be ...

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Art Beat

by Shawn Stone March 20, 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Capitol Chamber Artists are an integral, longtime part of the local music scene, and one of their key members is celebrating his birthday this Saturday night with a Celtic-themed concert. Flautist and all-around ...

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Still Feels Like Kansas

by Shawn Stone March 13, 2013

It could have been worse. But it’s still pretty bad. This fantasy epic is riddled with problems: James Franco is a terrible Wizard of Oz; the film plods along to an extent that it would have ...

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Bewitched

by Shawn Stone February 20, 2013

The Twilight Saga is over. Until the inevitable reboot comes along, what will fill the void left in teenage hearts? Moviegoers could do worse than Beautiful Creatures, a Southern Gothic teen romance (with magic) that’s ...

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The Reel Thing

by Shawn Stone February 13, 2013

“Does she . . . or doesn’t she?” Back in the golden age of pop-culture double entendres, that was the pitch for a long-running series of advertisements for a popular brand of hair dye. It continued: “Hair ...

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For Better or For Worse

by Shawn Stone February 13, 2013

This wrenching drama about an elderly couple facing illness, physical/mental decline, and, eventually, death, is bracing, heartwarming, alienating and thoroughly unsettling. It’s up for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, which ...

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Heart

by Shawn Stone February 7, 2013

The boomers were out in force last week at Proctors. Hardly an empty seat could be seen as the Wilson sisters and the rest of the current six-piece edition of Heart took the Mainstage to ...

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Art Beat

by Shawn Stone February 6, 2013

COMICS, ART Attention fanboys and fangirls: If you haven’t had the chance to check out the Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., ...

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Tired Old Men

by Shawn Stone February 6, 2013

This character drama about three gangsters in their twilight years relies way too much on the three leads’ star power (and resumes) to get by with audiences. The plot is relatively straightforward, but the tonal ...

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Wedding Guide: Outside the Church

by Shawn Stone January 31, 2013

Growing up, I attended a lot of weddings because I have a lot of cousins. And all of these ceremonies were in churches. Each Spring from age 5 to 18, I endured one ceremony after ...

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A Professional Job

by Shawn Stone January 31, 2013

This smart, businesslike crime drama stars Jason Statham as Parker, a no-nonsense criminal with questionable morals but a strict code of ethics. When he’s double-crossed after a robbery by his partners (led by a reliably ...

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