In the comedy The Square, a pair of whip-smart idiots from the marketing department are pitching a viral campaign for an exhibition at a huge Stockholm art museum. They're sketching in the details, but their idea is that the ad will feature a crying homeless child blown up by a time bomb. Art museums don't compete with other art for the eyes of the viewers, the two hucksters argue--it competes with the spectacles of the time, the disasters, the wars. To sell art, you've got to use violence. They may be right--as a friend says, violence is the universal language. There were few movies so eye-popping and action-packed in 2017 that audiences weren't watching them with one eye over their shoulders. » Read More

Erotic or sclerotic, it focuses on two American men in a highly unequal relationship in Italy's Lombardy region in the summer of 1983. Young Elio (Timothee Chalamet) becomes fascinated with a handsome 24-year old American student named Oliver (Armie Hammer, old for the part). Oliver has come to stay in the family's villa for six weeks to assist Elio's archeologist father (Michael Stuhlbarg). Throughout this summer's yearning, Elio also has a thing going on with a friend of the family Marzia (Esther Garrel), a lovely Parisian girl. » Read More

The throughline in Steve French's oeuvre--from the 1960s until his death in 2014--can't be defined with one approach or a singular aesthetic. He isn't like Claude Monet (1840-1926), an artist whose recurring palette and subject matter remain instantly recognizable. However, while looking at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art's (SJICA) retrospective of his work Overture: The Art of Steve French, the exhibit confirms that you can identify French, as well--but within a series of varying artistic strategies, from shaped prints that resemble oversized origami to industrial bronze assemblages and, of course, his paintings. » Read More

You'll recognize Grant Wood's name first in the San Jose Museum of Art's "Crossroads" exhibit. He's the painter made famous by American Gothic (1930), the one with the pitchfork standing upright between a farmer (modeled after the artist's dentist) and his daughter (after the artist's sister Nan). But this painting doesn't appear in the show. "Crossroads: American Scene Prints from Thomas Hart Benton to Grant Wood" is devoted solely to lithographs, etchings, and wood engravings by Benton, Wood and their lesser-known contemporaries. In fact, there are only two works by Benton and three by Wood, whereas Leon Gilmour and Louis Lozowick, neither household names, are represented by almost a dozen each. » Read More

A sold-out crowd welcomed musical prodigy Alma Deutscher to the California Theatre for the North American premier of Cinderella. A reproduction of the the classic fairy tale--only with a decidedly modern feel and opera-centric twist, Cinderella is the first full-length opera by Alma, a 12-year-old English girl, who previously attracted media attention for her impressive musical talent. Alma composed her first piano sonata at age 6, her first short opera at age 7, as well as a litany of other mind-bending musical accomplishments before hitting adolescence. Now at the distinguished age of 12, Alma is bringing her talents to Silicon Valley's Opera San Jose. » Read More

When each year concludes, the anti-man-about-town usually feels obligated to yack about his most rewarding columns of the previous 12 months. This year, however, one particular column stands out far above the rest because the absurdity continues to unfold. Just a few weeks ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction maestro and former downtown San Jose denizen Viet Thanh Nguyen learned that his autobiographical short story set in San Jose, "War Years," would be censored from the Vietnamese translation of his collection, The Refugees. Apparently the apparatus of state power in Vietnam did not enjoy the anti-communist sentiments he employed in the narrative. » Read More

It's tempting to get everything out in the open right away: "I've run the numbers on your chances of having sex with me, and they're pretty close to the odds of your being crushed to death by a middle-aged dentist falling out of the sky." Informing a guy pronto that you aren't romantically interested in him--though in somewhat kinder language--would be the right thing to do if he were just some persistent Tinder date you wanted to unload forever. But you're hoping to have a continuing business relationship with this guy. So even if it were wildly obvious that he has the hots for you, the last thing you should do is mention that particular elephant in the room. » Read More

Poet Diane Ackerman tells us that human tongues, lips, and genitals possess neural receptors that are ultra-responsive. Anatomists have given unsexy names to these bliss-generating parts of our bodies: Krause end bulbs, also known as bulboid corpuscles. (Couldn't they have called them "glimmering rapture hubs" or "magic buttons"?) In any case, these sweet spots enable us to experience surpassing pleasure. According to my understanding of the astrological omens for 2018, Cancerian, your personal complement of bulboid corpuscles will be even more sensitive than usual. Here's further good news: Your soul will also have a heightened capacity to receive and register delight. » Read More

As contrived as the practice is, there is a reason we mark the beginning of a new year by promising to better ourselves. We humans are creatures of habit who take cues from the daily turning of the globe and the Earth's elliptical path around the sun. And in the non-stop hustle and bustle of daily life it's important to slow down and take stock of where we came from and where we're going--at least once every 365 days. In a valley where time seems to move faster than most other places, 2017 absolutely blew by. Still, in the past 12 months we've seen the South Bay swell with great new restaurants, improve its standing as an arts and entertainment destination and continue to develop as the global leader in tech. » Read More