February 2014 - The Culture Mom

21Feb

Just Me, Myself and Netflix

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Tonight I find myself alone in the house. My husband and kids are away. I could be out on the town, at the movies, at a play. I could go dancing and stay up all night (yeah, right, I haven't done that in YEARS!). But the truth is all I want to do is sit on the couch with my Netflix remote, go into my list of saved features and watch TV all night long. I didn't realize it before today but I think I fell in love with Netflix. Well, my husband realized it before I did. Every night I swoon at the offerings as I slowly put one another into my list. As I Read More

18Feb

Exploring Jewish Life on the Lower East Side

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With all the snow we've been having in the Northeast, it's been hard to have adventures recently. This past Sunday, I had hopes for a cultural and educational day, so we headed out to the Lower East Side for an afternoon of exploration. A long time New Yorker, I have vivid memories of exploring the area when I first moved to the city, with visits to the pickle seller and then back to my apartment for sacred viewings of “Crossing Delancey,” the film with Amy Irving that brought the Lower East Side into the lives of many, mainly tourists, back in the Read More

13Feb

Talkin’ About a Revolution: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

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I grew up in the 1970s and clearly remember watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show with my mom and two sisters. I was really young when it aired, but even then I knew it was revolutionary. Mary and the rest of the cast had us all paying attention to a show about a single female news producer living and working in a male dominated world. What was amazing was that it was made during the height of the blossoming of women’s rights. How they did that is a story worth telling, and Jennifer Keishin Armstrong has skillfully done just that in her new book Mary and Read More

10Feb

The Perfect Sunday Matinee: Once the Musical

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When I first heard that Once was coming to Broadway, I was intrigued and excited. But I was also fearful that it wouldn't live up to the original film that I so adored. The combination of the music by the wonderful musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and the love story has never left my mind. It's one of my all time favorites and I didn't want my bubble to burst. So I held off on seeing the show, knowing that as an avid theater goer, I would one day see it. That day came yesterday when I attended a matinee of the show and I can honestly sigh Read More

07Feb

Giveaway: The Realistic Joneses on Broadway

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Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Will Eno and directed by Sam Gold (Fun Home), the upcoming Broadway show The Realistic Joneses is inside look at the people who live next door, the truths we think we know and the secrets we never imagined we all might share. As their relationships begin to irrevocably intertwine, the Joneses must decide between their idyllic fantasies and their imperfect realities. The show originally premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT, in April 2012, starring Letts, Parker Posey, Glenn Fitzgerald and Johanna Read More

05Feb

The Unofficial GIRLS Guide to New York

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I love GIRLS. I write about the show often. I wrote it about it on BlogHer recently and I've written about the provocative and daring show here several times, as well. I'm a huge fan, even in light of Hannah's newly discovered narcissism this season. Last season it was OCD, now she's full of herself. As a matter of fact, all the characters are and it doesn't bother me because I know and remember being in my 20s living in NYC and, believe it or not, my life was not that dissimilar. Take as you will from that statement. I'm such a fan that the show's Read More

03Feb

A Short Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

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When I heard the news about Philip Seymour Hoffman yesterday, I was incredibly shocked but more than that, incredibly sad. Sad for the film world, sad for the theater world, sad for the arts world in general. Sad for all the works he was meant to create and star in that we will never see. At age 46, he accomplished so much. If you look at his body of work, you see that he chose his projects very carefully. The list is so vast, with films like Almost Famous, Magnolia, Charlie Wilson's War, Capote, The Master, Moneyball and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Read More

01Feb

The Poetry of 12 Years a Slave

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Sometimes you see a movie that stays with you for a very, very long time. That movie for me is 12 Years a Slave. I nipped into a very empty cinema on a weekday afternoon recently on my own and prepared myself for an afternoon at the movies. To say that it was like therapy is an understatement. From the minute I first set eyes on the eyes of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon, I was smitten. Inside his eyes I felt the weight of the 19th century reality of slavery. The film starts out as his character, Solomon Northup, a brilliant violinist is living in Read More