08/30/11

Northern Westchester Director Joe Berlinger Frees the West Memphis Three

Last week in this blog, we looked at the HBO documentary There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane and wondered whether or not a film like that could have any effect, either on an audience or on those appearing in it. What Joe Berlinger, a Chappaqua native and now Northern Westchester resident, proves is that, yes, an HBO documentary can have a tremendous impact.

In 1996, Berlinger (whom I had the pleasure of interviewing for Crude, his film about Chevron's destruction of Ecuador) and co-filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky released a...

Posted at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments: 3

08/23/11

HBO Revisits Our Taconic Crash

It's been two years since Diane Schuler, returning home from a family trip to the Catskills, drove her car the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway, killing herself and seven other people and causing the worst accident our county had seen in three-quarters of a century.

And yet, even though so much time has passed, so little is known about why Schuler acted the way that she did. With the question still burning in people's minds, filmmaker Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World) set out to make a documentary about the crash. The result, There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, aired on HBO and is currently available through...

Posted at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

08/16/11

Theater Review: Altar Boyz at the Westchester Broadway Theatre

Altar Boyz debuted in New York City in 2004, right after the late-'90s, early-'00s boom of boy bands that brought us the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and 98 Degrees. While acts like those are no longer a dominating force on the pop charts, is there still a reason to go see a musical that satirizes them?

The answer, when taking the Westchester Broadway Theatre's production into consideration, is definitely yes. There's enough in Altar Boyz to recommend it even if you don't know all of the old boy-band tropes—or, for that matter, the parts of a mass (though knowledge of both will certainly help you understand some of the...

Posted at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

08/10/11

Jay-Z and Kanye West on Pace's Danroy “DJ” Henry

Two of the biggest names in hip-hop—Kanye West and Jay-Z (who is rumored to have a house in Scarsdale, though I don't know of anyone who's come across him here)—teamed up for Watch the Throne, an album they finally released this week to much Internet commotion.

I know lots of pop-culture followers were eagerly anticipating the album, waiting to see what the two high-profile artists would come up with for their collaboration. What I didn't expect, though, was to see one of our local tragedies pop up in the lyrics.

Track 10 on the album, "Murder to Excellence," mentions by name Danroy Henry, the Pace...

Posted at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

08/09/11

Is Kara DioGuardi Out of Hits?

There's no doubt that the New Rochelle native is a huge success behind the scenes. She's written or co-written earworms like Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man," Enrique Iglesias's "Don't Turn Off the Lights," Hilary Duff's "Fly," and Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me." The music publishing company she co-owns, Arthouse Entertainment, has even more hits to its name, including Bruno Mars's "Just The Way You Are and Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" (the “clean” version of the original).

But, for some reason, she just can't translate that success to the small screen. Sure, she...

Posted at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

08/02/11

The Westchester Review Celebrates its Fifth Anniversary

It seems like just yesterday that I was telling you all about The Westchester Review, Westchester County's newest literary journal. This month, the journal put out its fifth issue. Happy anniversary, Westchester Review!

"We are very proud of the diversity of literary talent and interests that it represents," says Lesleigh Forsyth, a member of the Review's editorial board.

As well they should be. This installment's contributors include a Pushcart Prize nominee; a writer who's appeared in both the New York Times and Glamour; an artists who's represented in the collection at...

Posted at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0