She lived in a 10-by-12-foot shack with her fish-peddling husband, Everett (Ethan Hawke), selling her paintings by the roadside as souvenirs. Because of her immobility Maud couldn't paint very big canvases. Much of her work has disappeared. Maudie shows how her life changed when she left her domineering aunt and took a job with Everett-a scowling, almost vicious grown-up orphan with a bad temper. Hawke has to stretch; he's a tenor trying to sing bass. It's clear why Hawke was cast; because he's a warm, handsome actor, you forgive Everett for his meanness. Hawke recalls the line in La Strada excusing Zampano's similarly bad temper: "A dog looks at you, wants to talk and only barks." » Read More

In 1864, a wounded Union deserter becomes a fox in a henhouse. In both versions of The Beguiled (1971/2017) Corporal McBurney manipulates the Confederate ladies of a small finishing school. Is it Christian love or devilish lust that makes the half-dozen ladies conceal the enemy soldier from the patrolling Confederate troops? It's unclear who the title refers to, unless everyone here is beguiled, and a self-beguiler. In the thin, pretty-pretty Sofia Coppola re-do, McBurney (Colin Farrell) tries to flirt the ladies into submission ... for a time, the Irish accent, the melting glances and the outrageous compliments work. He's always watching, seeing how his hostesses are taking his show of gentlemanly behavior. The easiest pickings would seem » Read More

Klea McKenna and Nikki Grattan made a short, intimate profile of the artist Heather Wilcoxon on their website inthemake.com. The camera moves around her studio like a curious eye that takes in her work and the clutter on every available surface. As they narrow their focus to the artist's active hands, she imprints an inky black creature onto a white canvas, a headless possum-dog, a hybrid with two opposing tails. At the time, this alien animal, along with a universe of misshapen, corporeal forms, represented the artist's concerns with the neurotic id. Where cartoonists like Roz Chast and Aline Kominsky-Crumb keep their phobias and obsessions in (mostly) human form, Wilcoxon made a practice out of turning them into Tim Burton-like monsters. » Read More

The Pear Theatre's newest production is the world premiere of a comedic romp through the words of William Shakespeare. Written by Max Gutmann, and the last show of the Pear's fifteenth season, What You Will is a funny combines elements from different Shakespeare plays into a new comedic homage to the Sweet Swan of Avon. The play opens on a Duke as he holds court. He is conducting business with a man named Antonio, but there is suspicion between the two, a rivalry encouraged by the Duke's attendant Malvolio. The Duke has eyes for Antonio's wife, something Antonio can only suspect until he dresses up like her and deceives the duke's affection. Likewise, the Duke's wife, The Duchess, suspects foul play, but only ends up seducing Antonio when » Read More

Since its release as a novel in 1963, followed shortly after by the classic 1967 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, The Graduate has been an important cultural point of reference. Nearly a half century later, it has been baked into the radioactive background of American life. Now it's the Palo Alto Players' turn to take a stab at the eminent coming-of-age comedy. The play opens on Benjamin Braddock sitting awkwardly on his bed. He's wearing a wet suit his father bought him and is dreading facing a sea of people downstairs-all there to celebrate his college graduation. Benjamin almost is prepared to escape his house and avoid the party entirely when a family friend-Mrs. Robinson-finds her way into his room while looking for a » Read More

Astroturf covers the stage and a brick wall backdrops a rollicking physical spree of improvised activity. Two gangs, distinguishable only by their red and blue colors, have taken the role of life-sized puppets. Before them, a diverse and jam-packed crowd of students, musicians, doctors, professors, nerds, families and comedy fanatics are screaming directions. These people are playing their own role: a collective crowd-sourced plotline trigger. Video screens on each side of the stage note the score. The players, blue and red, are jumping on top of each other, waving their arms, offering a helping hand, doing anything they can to get their teammates to guess the right phrase. The match seems out of control until a ref blows his whistles over » Read More

Tim Eglington doesn't remember when he first started working at Paramount Imports. It seems like one of those mystical passages of time with no end and no beginning. Within seconds, though, Stacy Sargent, the owner and decades-long manager of Paramount, jumps in the back to retrieve the answer: 1987. Eglington is one of many with decades of Paramount experience. The time component is crucial because once again, anniversaries are exploding out of nowhere. Exactly a month from now, Paramount will throw a huge party to celebrate its 50th year at 455 Meridian Ave. Forget the Summer of Love. This is the summer of Paramount Imports. Generations of outcasts cut their teeth at Paramount, myself included. It was the first place in the Bay Area to » Read More

Men aren't used to women being preoccupied with their girlparts. Even in Redneckville, you never see a woman hanging a rubber replica of hers off the back of her pickup. The truth is, not all women went for a look-see down there with a hand mirror at age 14. Recently, some women may have gotten inspired to do some camera-phone sightseeing thanks to the increased visibility of the ladygarden via free internet porn, the mainstreaming of the waxed-bald vulva, and giant ads for labiaplasty (aka a face-lift for your vagina). Though it's possible that your girlfriend is texting these to other guys, consider what anthropologist Donald Symons calls the human tendency "to imagine that other minds are much like our own." This can lead us to forget » Read More

One of the 21st century's most entertaining archaeological events was the discovery of King Richard III's bones. The English monarch died in 1485, but his burial site had long been a mystery. It wasn't an archaeologist who tracked down his remains, but a screenwriter named Philippa Langley. She did extensive historical research, narrowing down the possibilities to a car park in Leicester. As she wandered around there, she got a psychic impression at one point that she was walking directly over Richard's grave. Her feeling later turned out to be right. I suspect your near future will have resemblances to her adventure. You'll have success in a mode that's not your official area of expertise. Sharp analytical thinking will lead you to the » Read More