As those familiar pointy white tents were being pitched all over campus this week in preparation for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I couldn’t help but get to thinking about how we deal with literature here at the dB Magazine. And no, I’m not talking about deciding between a post-structuralist or a formalist […]
Author Archives: Sommer Mathis
Review: Company delivers “˜Credeaux Canvas’ with thoughtful maturity
These days, the first thing that strikes you as you wander into the tiny Little Victory Theater in North Hollywood is how authentic and confident John Williams’ set design for the venue’s current production, Keith Bunin’s “The Credeaux Canvas,” truly feels. Williams’ realistic recreation of a cluttered, tiny East Village apartment, right down to the […]
Review: “˜Kill Bill Vol. 2′ softens carnage without sacrificing director’s trademark style
While many critics bemoaned Miramax’s decision to release “Kill Bill” in two installments as a ploy to force moviegoers to pay twice for the same film, it turns out that “Kill Bill Vol. 2″ actually does have a tone and style that are distinctly different from those of the first film, even though the story […]
Creativity, not cash, is all you need to pack
The main goal of a college education, if the majority of my professors are to be believed, is to learn to think critically about as wide a variety of issues as possible. Certainly, we will absorb hard information as a part of the process of exercising our critical thinking skills, but memorizing factoids is not […]
Snoop Dogg proves he can pimp it in new film
Among the ever increasing tide of rappers-turned-actors working today, Snoop Dogg is probably not known as the most accomplished ““ at least in regard to the acting side of his career. Despite a couple of very small roles in the respected films “Training Day” and John Singleton’s “Baby Boy,” his most substantial parts to date […]
Barbarian Invasion
As illogical as it may sound at the outset, Los Angeles-based band My Barbarian is in fact the logical result of the combination of an actor, a filmmaker, a video director, a playwright and a trained artist. Oh, and they play music, too. It would be easy to lazily describe the band, especially their energetic […]
Movie rich in gore, not anti-Semitism
Don’t expect any theological revelations from Mel Gibson’s much-debated new release, “The Passion of The Christ.” Staying far clear from any meaningful debate about the origins of Christianity, Gibson instead has created a film which is singularly designed to showcase the physical torture experienced by Jesus of Nazareth during the last 12 hours of his […]