Singer and actress Aaliyah accomplished a great deal in her brief career before tragically perishing in a plane crash on August 25, 2001 at the age of 22. Several multi-platinum albums and chart-topping singles, plus co-starring roles in the feature films Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned, are obvious highpoints. The biopic Aaliyah:...
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March 3, 2015March 3, 2015Video
DVD Review: To Write Love on Her Arms
To Write Love on Her Arms is an extremely well-intentioned movie starring Kat Dennings as a young woman struggling with depression, addiction, and self-harming. It’s based on the true story of Renee Yohe (Dennings) and her support group of friends, including Jamie Tworkowski (Chad Michael Murray). The real Tworkowski not only penned the book upon...
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February 23, 2015February 23, 2015Film
Blu-ray Review: Life Itself
Steve James (Hoop Dreams) directed the documentary Life Itself, an adaptation of the late film critic Roger Ebert’s memoir of the same name. Ebert was involved in the production, bravely allowing the disfiguring results of his surgical procedures to be photographed up close by James’ unflinching camera. Ebert’s work as one of the most influential...
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February 6, 2015February 6, 2015Music
New Music for Old People: Fifty Years of the Balladry and Bad-Ass Brilliance of Tracy Nelson
I first heard/saw Tracy on a Prestige album — a label normally reserved for jazzers, hence my immediate interest in a gal who looked to be in her early 20s but sang like a woman from the early 1920s. Turns out she was a bluesy folker and her voice made an immediate dent in the...
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February 5, 2015February 5, 2015Television
A Man of Integrity: Interview with Grantchester’s Robson Green
London, Oxford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow — these and numerous other places in the United Kingdom have for the longest time provided the ideal settings for some of the most well-written as well as atmospheric TV crime stories. Recently, a certain Cambridgeshire village has experienced an uptick in criminal activity, much to the delight of small...
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February 4, 2015February 4, 2015Music
Bentley’s Bandstand: February 2015
Bob Dylan, Shadows in the Night. It’s obviously late in the evening when Bob Dylan brings out the Great American Songbook. The moon is full, the stars are shining, and the sky is darker than blue. Still, Dylan zeroes in on some of the greatest ballads ever written, with names like Irving Berlin, Rodgers and...
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January 23, 2015January 23, 2015Music
Old Music for New People: Andy Davis, Mount Moriah, Sonya Kitchell, PJ Morton and More
When I’m on the road or in deep production, sometimes I can’t get a column done on time. To prevent quality loss, I thought I’d go back to our first year (2011) and republish some of the better music that didn’t reach the readership we have now. I apologize to the original readers who are...
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January 12, 2015January 12, 2015Music
Bentley’s Bandstand: January 2015
Kristin Andreassen, Gondolier. Beginning the year with an inspired singer-songwriter who, among many flights of fancy, wishes her childhood pet dog had been a horse, seems like a good way to get the party started. Kristin Andreassen’s first onstage experiences may have been as a professional clogger in Annapolis, Maryland, but it was clear from...
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January 2, 2015January 2, 2015Music
New Music for Old People: The 25 Most Appreciated Tracks of 2014
Hello, my favorite listeners! I wrote 47 columns this year and these were the 25 most talked about tracks in the emails and comments I received from all of you. It makes an interesting list as some of the music is NOT FROM 2014 — but was included in this year’s columns. This is where...
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December 15, 2014December 15, 2014Music
Bentley’s Bandstand: The Second Half – Favorite Albums of 2014
For music lovers, it’s always a kick to pick the favorite albums of the year. So much so that it’s twice as fun to do it twice—once at the end of June and now in mid-December. All the music mentioned below is an exhilarating and often educational ride on the sonic highway, guaranteed to get...