Arts

'A Good Day to Die Hard' a graceless departure

Film Review | 'Safe Haven' enters dangerous territory with discordant plotlines

"Safe Haven" is the latest film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book - and its refusal to stay within the predictable outline established by previous adaptations is its undoing.

Danielle Jenkins | Greenwise

TV Review | 'Suits' still highly entertaining in second season

The second and final part of the second season of "Suits" has now come to a close, and what a ride it was. The first season introduced us to the unoriginal yet necessary trope of the unlikely duo, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams). Mike is a brilliant bum, taking the LSATs for other people for money, and Harvey just happens to be a very successful lawyer looking for a new assistant. What will happen next? Who knows! It all seems like a horrible cliche - but it isn't the premise that matters: it's the show. The writers of "Suits" are brilliant with dialogue. The seemingly endless amounts of wit at their disposal results in them producing some of the most entertaining dialogue on television. Much like AMC's ever popular "Mad Men," "Suits" must rely completely on this dialogue because, unfortunately, there isn't much action involved in a show about lawyers.

Concert Review | Boston Symphony Hall showcases Mozart rendition

Melissa MacEwen | The Roaming Fork

Theater Review | Escapism shines poignantly throughout 'The Glass Menagerie'

TV Review | 'Once Upon a Time' brings new twist to old tales

Rebecca Santiago | Is So Vain

I've been trying to start this column for a while now, but every time I try to type, I find myself gazing at my keyboard in quizzical fascination instead. Interesting things are happening on my nails right now - things such as microbeads and polishes and postmodern nightmares - and it's just not conducive to writing, man.

Restaurant Review | 'Neighborhood' prepares food for great value

In the mood for a breakfast or brunch that will cost under $10 but will keep you full for the rest of the day? The Neighborhood Restaurant and Bakery in Somerville's Union Square has been serving up heaping plates of Portuguese lunches as breakfast foods since the early 1980's. Although the original manager, Mario Borges, died in 2001, the rest of the Borges clan, under his sister Sheila's management, has kept the restaurant going.

TV Review | New season of 'Community' already seems promising

Concert Review | Vaccines headline great concert in Boston

The Vaccines are the UK's best?kept secret. Hitting fourth on album charts across the pond in 2011 with their debut studio album, confidently titled, "What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?," they made their indie rock sound an incontrovertible part of Britain's club scene.

DeLong debut album 'Just Movement' catchy, unoriginal

With colossal names such as MTV and Billboard pegging up?and?coming musician Robert DeLong as an "artist to watch," his debut album "Just Movement" had high expectations to live up to. The album, released on Jan. 22, brings together 12 beat?heavy tracks including his earlier released single "Global Concepts," which has been playing on radio stations around the country since last summer. While the songs themselves are catchy and stimulating, the hype around him was definitely misplaced.

Insurgent '80s highlight ICA show

What will have been? This! "This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s" is an exhibit currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The exhibit's duplicitous aim - to give a historical purview of the 1980's and then to contextualize this within contemporary politics - may be ambitious, but it is made particularly salient by a couple works.

ICA exhibition highlights insurgent '80s

What will have been? "This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s" is an exhibit currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The exhibit's duplicitous aim - to give a historical purview of the 1980's and then to contextualize this within contemporary politics - may be ambitious, but it is made particularly salient by a couple of works.

Soderbergh's 'Side Effects' a prescription better left unfilled

Warning, the film "Side Effects" may result in delusional thoughts, paranoia concerning pharmacology, disorientation from too many plot twists and general disappointment in an otherwise promising film.

Joe Stile | Amo

Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) is a problematic film. Its ending implies that love can cure mental illness and simplifies an often?complex situation to the point of marginalizing it. This is even more disappointing because of how effective the film is in its first two?thirds at treating the relationship between its main characters and the struggles they go through. It's a cop?out for a happy and crowd?pleasing ending that undercuts a lot of what the film does bravely.

Flux Pavilion falls short of hype on 'Blow the Roof'

The album format is a bit of an anomaly in the world of dubstep. With so much of the genre's fame and success based on singles and remixes, full?length offerings get minimal attention. This is consistent with the aesthetic of the genre, which is based more on shock factor, temporal excitement and emphasis than longevity and subtlety. Popular dubstep is the exclamation point of the electronic music scene, and most of the time it thrives in that role.

Invisible Man' brings classic to stage at Huntington

Above the Huntington Theatre Company's stage, an intricate placard reads "Go hold as 'twere the mirror up to Nature." Apart from referencing the literary classic "Hamlet," this quote gives the packed audience a preview of what is to come from behind the curtain as they venture into the stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison's classic "Invisible Man."

Concert Review | Purity Ring engages crowd at House of Blues

Electric. The rock star is as dead as a doornail, and we as listeners are left to sift through its ashes, hoping and praying to stumble across bands like Purity Ring. Wednesday night at the House of Blues, Purity Ring brought its own unique brand of nightmare indietronica to Boston with fantastic showmanship - indietronica being a new genre that combines indie, electronica, rock and pop to create a fantastical amalgamation. Touring to promote its first and only album, Purity Ring's set ran for one unbelievable hour. The Canadian duo epitomizes the possibilities of new age music in this technological era. While CorinRoddick mans a handmade rig of light-up drum pads and DJ equipment, singer Megan James authoritatively takes center stage. From the opening song "Amenamy," James made sure everyone knew that the night was going to be nothing but an electronic house party. Lucky for all of us, the "house" that was originally supposed to be the Middle East was switched to the House of Blues, a sign that this band is on its way up. And while the scene has changed over the years, it was hard not to see James as a modern opera singer as she stood in front of a colossal red curtain and belted out their only cover of the night, Soulja Boy's "Grammy." Hump day quickly became thump day as Roddick's synthesized bass rattled every brick in the building and every bone in the audience's collective body. Critics of the electronic genre may reduce it to button-pushing, but Roddick clearly has a strong musical background as he pushes those buttons like David Gilmour or Jimmy Page would play guitar. Credit must be given to Purity Ring for creating its own unique sound in today's musical age. With song titles like "Crawlersout" and "Obedear," the nightmare genre tag Purity Ring encompasses really begins to capture its listeners. Purity Ring's existence reflects a fundamental change in the structure of a traditional concert. From the '60s until the early 2000s, everyone was always fighting to get as close to the stage as humanly possible. This is not the case today. Standing too close to the stage now detracts from one's ability to fully absorb the act and the music. Touring, rather than album sales, is what puts bread on the table for today's performing artist - therefore the spectacle of the show must be worth seeing. In this regard, Purity Ring's show looks like something extracted from a David Lynch movie. Twenty to 30 mesmerizing orbs lit up in different colors above the stage enhanced the effect that the music had on its audience. These days, instead of guitar gods we get dramatic DJs, and Roddick definitely does not disappoint. The young crowd ranged from couples that are probably frequent visitors to Pitchfork.com, to hip-hop kids undoubtedly present to see the opener Young Magic. The differences in the audience quickly became null, however, as the music reverberated and the head banging and dancing began. For Purity Ring, the show clearly hinged on three songs: the aforementioned opener, "Lofticries" and the "Fineshrine." Not surprisingly, these songs are the most accessible to today's audience. The one negative aspect of the show would probably be the few moments in which the sound strongly resembled the chanting of the monks from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975). Regardless, Purity Ring has a devoted fan base that was capable of packing the House of Blues and that is growing larger and larger everyday. Either the planets were aligned or Al Gore is not as insane as everyone thinks because a sixty-degree warm night at the end of January in Boston was the first sign that this show was going to be success. Much like the unseasonably warm night, the performance was like nothing this city has ever seen. Take note, now, everyone, because this band is going to get bigger, and when it does we're all going to have one hell of a dance party.