Star City Blog / Theatre & Film

'Crude' @ The Ross

Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary, CRUDE, opening at The Ross on Friday, November 13, from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster), tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet.
 
“A legal thriller, [CRUDE is] a three-year investigation into the disaster environmentalists call the “Amazonian Chernobyl” that offers both sides of the story and leaves the viewer in the position of jury,” according to Liam Lacey, film critic for The Globe and Mail.

Review of 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown' at the TADA Theatre

By Sarah F. Sullivan

It was a dismal, rainy evening that brought audiences to the doors of the TADA Theatre for the opening night of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. However, nobody seemed to mind. In fact, everyone’s spirits seemed to lift when they saw the set as they took their seats in the cozy theatre.

There was Lucy’s Psychiatric Booth, Snoopy’s doghouse, Charlie Brown’s porch and the brick wall where so many philosophical conversations took place amongst the Peanuts gang. It was so strange to see the settings of such a beloved comic strip rendered into a tangible, 3D set (designed by Dustin Witte). Seeing the bright stage and hearing the classic jazz music (played during Peanuts television specials) pushed everyone’s gloomy thoughts away and prepared them for an evening of fun and laughter.

Take Part in the 3rd Biennial VisionMaker Film Festival Oct. 30th-Nov. 5th

The 3rd Biennial VisionMaker Film Festival is a project of Native American Public Telecommunications and the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center and runs from October 30th to November 5th. This year, the Sheldon Art Museum has been added as another presentation partner,

New this year is a short-form video competition for high school and young adults. These projects are featured here.

'The Beaches of Agnes' @ The Ross

A reflection on art, life and the movies, opening at The Ross on Friday, November 4, THE BEACHES OF AGNES is a magnificent new film from the great Agnes Varda (The Gleaners and I), a richly cinematic self portrait that touches on everything from the feminist movement and the Black Panthers to the films of husband Jacques Demy and the birth of the French New Wave.
 
New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis proclaims, “[THE BEACHES OF AGNES is] Glorious... A remarkable history, rich in comedy and occasionally heartbreaking, filled with wise reflections and strange digressions about the wonders of life.”

Review of 'The Tavern' at The Haymarket Theatre

By Ladd Wendelin

Halloween always seems to bring out the best in the autumn season. The warmth of hearth and home, the rich colors of crisp fallen leaves, and mysterious strangers pounding at the door.

The Haymarket Theatre plays host to all of these in their production of George M. Cohan’s wonderfully over-the-top melodrama, The Tavern, which runs Oct. 29th-31st and Nov. 1st, 4th-6th. Directed by Bobby Bonaventura, a bizarre series of events at a quaint local tavern is instigated by the appearance of The Vagabond (Shawn McGill), a winsome libertine whose beguiling allure sends not only the tavern owner (John L. Marinovich), but the Governor (Stephen A. Gaines), his family, and a mysterious woman (Andrea Beckwith) on a collision course with fate one dark, stormy and very windy night.

'Coco Before Chanel' @ The Ross

The very feminine, very inward-looking French biopic COCO BEFORE CHANEL, opening at The Ross on Friday, November 4, features one of the finest performances by Audrey Tautou to date.
 
“[Audrey] Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm,” according to Kenneth Turan writing in the Los Angeles Times.
 
Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum writes, “COCO BEFORE CHANEL examines the influences that made Chanel so different — and so irreplaceable — the way an observant fashion student might deconstruct an haute couture garment to understand how it's built.”
 
COCO BEFORE CHANEL is showing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center on Friday, November 4 through Thursday, November 19.  Show times are available at www.TheRoss.org, by consulting your newspaper, or by calling the MRRMAC film information line at 402.472.5353. The Motion Picture Association of America rated COCO BEFORE CHANEL PG-13 for sexual content and language.

Review of Theatrix's 'Betrayal'

By Sarah F. Sullivan

The second play of the 2009-2010 season of the student-led Theatrix, Betrayal, documents a seven-year affair in an unusual fashion: it begins at the end and ends at the beginning. By giving audiences all the puzzle pieces to start with, they are left with the challenge of seeing where they fit as time slips backwards, which makes for a unique night of theatre.

The show runs a whirlwind 90 minutes, its short time seemingly taunting the length of the affair. Comprised of well-worn risers of various heights, silky swaths of white fabric along the back wall and a Frank Lloyd Wright-esque mosaic on the floor, the set showcases an urban feel mixed with elegance. It embodies the cold, temporary nature of the play, making the movements across time seamless.

For One Brief, Shining Moment, 'Camelot' Comes to The Lied Center

The national Broadway tour of Camelot, the Lerner and Loewe masterpiece and one of Broadway's greatest musicals, comes to the Lied Center for Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Nov. 3 and 4.

From the celebrated team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who created the beloved musical My Fair Lady, comes the musical adaptation of T.H. White's "The Once and Future King," one of literature's most cherished fables.

A sumptuous tale set in a land where honor and chivalry reign, Camelot follows the love triangle of King Arthur, his Queen Guinevere and the young Lancelot. Magicians, sorcerers and noblemen run rampant, only to collide in a flurry of fanfare as Lerner and Loewe spin an unforgettable web of spellbinding action and forbidden love. With one of Broadway's most enchanting scores, Camelot is the definitive musical theater fable.

'The Cove' @ The Ross

The Japanese town of Taiji is testing its residents' mercury levels for the first time. The issue of mercury-laden dolphin meat being sold in Taiji and across Japan, often as mislabeled whale meat, was exposed through the release of the film THE COVE. The multi award-winning documentary reveals the connection between the capture of dolphins in Taiji and the poisoning of those that eat the toxic dolphin meat.
 
Taiji, located south of Kyoto in Wakamaya Prefecture, is the center of the captive dolphin industry where hundreds are captured for amusement parks each year. The town also hosts the largest slaughter of dolphins on the planet. Between September and March of every year, about 2,300 are killed for meat, even though dolphin meat can be dozens of times more toxic with mercury than allowed by Japanese law.

Sold-Out Off-Broadway Play 'No Child' Comes to Kimball Hall

Playwright and performer Nilaja Sun will portray 16 characters. ranging from a mouthy student to pushy parents in her one-woman show titled "No Child" Oct. 21 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sun sheds light on the laughter, struggles, irony and miracles of America's public schools in her show beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall, 11th and R streets.

In this solo show, she plays an entire classroom of children, their teachers, their parents, the principal, the janitor and even a security guard with a metal detector at the front door. Sun takes on 16 roles in 70 minutes, transforming her 8-year adventure as a teaching artist into a master class on humor, heartbreak and hope. Due to strong language, this show may not be suitable for younger audiences.