Tim Jackson writes that #ÓliverLaxe's "Sirāt" is a heart-stopping, surreal reflection of our contemporary moment. Screening at @thecoolidge.bsky.social artsfuse.org/325084/film-...

March Short Fuses is up and at 'em. Reviews from, among others, me, Ralph Locke, Steve Provizer, Steve Erickson, Mark Favermann. artsfuse.org/324790/march...

Paul Robicheau on a very special evening at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Steve Reich’s 1976 minimalist masterpiece "Music for 18 Musicians” performed by Ensemble SIGNAL. artsfuse.org/325029/conce...

Ed Symkus adores director #bazluhrmann’s exhilarating documentary-concert film, "EPiC: Elvis Pressley in Concert," gives us #elvispresley in his prime. artsfuse.org/324985/film-...

The documentary "Deepfaking Sam Altman" is an entertaining, off-beat deep dive into the hands-on tech needed to generate deepfakes, writes Preston Gralla. It also sounds the alarm about the growing imitative power of AI. artsfuse.org/324996/film-...

@pkeough1.bsky.social offers admiring looks at a wealth of illuminating documentaries at this year's Boston Baltic Film Festival. artsfuse.org/324965/doc-t...

In this episode of The Short Fuse Podcast, host Elizabeth Howard speaks with Oarabile Ditsele, a South African actor, filmmaker, writer, and multidisciplinary creative artist. artsfuse.org/324956/short...

For @sarahminaosman.bsky.social, the ratio between fantasy and real life felt off in this uneven film version of Kander and Ebb’s 1990 musical, though #JenniferLopez and #Tonatiuh shine. artsfuse.org/324033/film-...

Robert Israel reviews Allegra Goodman's "This Is Not About Us." What is served up in this collection of stories — it is not a novel, although it aspires to be -- could be called a vision of Jewish American Life Lite. @thedialpress.bsky.social artsfuse.org/324876/book-...

David Mehegan on #sarastridsberg's novel #beckomberga: Disrepair is the leitmotif. The atmosphere throughout is dark and gray, tinting a sadness that to the narrator seems to be inexpressible. @fsgbooks.bsky.social artsfuse.org/324865/book-...

Betsy Sherman writes that cinema lovers with a taste for the exotic and a tolerance for narrative loose ends should take advantage of the re-emergence, via 4k digital makeover, of the splendid silent film "Queen Kelly." artsfuse.org/324928/film-...

A feature by Joan Lancourt on harnessing the performing arts to prepare the next generation to sustain democracy. artsfuse.org/324735/theat...

This week’s poem: Marina Lazzara’s “passionflower” artsfuse.org/324889/weekl...?

The weekly newsletter is out. My column answers critics who’ve pushed back against my view that the arts must sound the alarm and resist as we face a drift toward authoritarianism. artsfuse.substack.com/p/the-arts-f...

@allenmichie.bsky.social enthuses that the Django Festival Allstars's album "Evolution" is a major statement from master musicians building on a strong tradition and taking it forward into our own generation with passion and elegance. artsfuse.org/324849/album...

Erica Abeel on Josh Safdie’s "Marty Supreme" and Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights." Both films are intermittently entertaining and display a high level of craft. They’re also blithely mediocre: mainly flash and filigree, vacuous at their center. artsfuse.org/324835/film-...

David Mehegan writes that #MarioVargasLlosa’s final novel, "I Give You My Silence," is a sweet, light story about art and idealism—and its ever-present opposite, cynicism. @fsgbooks.bsky.social artsfuse.org/324608/book-...

@pkeough1.bsky.social's latest "Doc Talk" column: for a piercing reflection of the times, turn to 2026 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film. artsfuse.org/324771/doc-t...

Clea Simon writes on the eighth iteration of “Which Side? A Protest Music Teach-out," the monthly music and inspiration gatherings dedicated to protest music. It was a wild success. artsfuse.org/324708/music...?

In its first commercial recording, writes Ralph Locke, Croatian composer Frano Parać’s opera "Judita "wrings compelling drama out of the biblical strory. artsfuse.org/324686/opera...

Preston Gralla writes that what you’ll think about Steven Underwood's "Forever for the Culture: Notes from the New Black Digital Arts Renaissance" @beaconpress.bsky.social will likely rest on what you make of the writer’s definition of Black digital Art. artsfuse.org/324670/book-...

Peter Keough on director #HlynurPálmason's "The Love That Remains" -- this domestic tragicomedy critiques the patriarchy amid the staggering beauty of Iceland’s landscape. It is an ambitious, artful, but half-baked bagatelle. Screening at @brattletheatre.bsky.social artsfuse.org/324646/film-...

Robert Israel reviews #JoshuaHarmon's play "We Had a World" at @thehuntington.bsky.social. The dark comedy offers familial turbulence, moments of rhapsodic relief, and revelations of how guilt and hostility fuse to create irreparable fissures in the family dynamic. artsfuse.org/324633/theat...

Clea Simon is smitten by "The Copywriter" @simonandschuster.bsky.social -- Daniel Poppick generates plenty of humor from the quotidian as he skewers contemporary life – and what passes as our search for meaning -- in this short novel. artsfuse.org/324551/book-...

This week's poem: Nidia Hernández's "Darkness" artsfuse.org/324627/weekl...

Ralph Locke on the first recording of Lerner and Weill’s 1948 musical "Love Life." (Capriccio) Lauded in histories of Broadway but rarely performed, the show proves to be an insightful and effective work of social criticism, nearly eight decades after its premiere. artsfuse.org/324588/album...

Jon Garelick on "WAIL: The Visual Language of #prestigerecords" (RIT Press). Along with its slew of images — photos, sketches, and ephemera as well as album covers — WAIL offers what amounts to a compelling oral history of a burgeoning New York cultural scene. artsfuse.org/324569/book-...

The magazine's weekly newsletter -- packed with links -- has come forth. My short editorial wonders why U.S. philanthropies have been so reluctant to take bold stances against the country’s slide toward authoritarianism. artsfuse.substack.com/p/the-arts-f...

Allen Michie on the Maria Schneider Orchestra's EP "American Crow" (@artistshare.bsky.social). Composer and bandleader #mariaschneider is a storyteller, and that’s the best way to approach her music for the first time. artsfuse.org/324517/jazz-...

For Robert Israel, the "In the Fiddler’s House" klezmer concert (presented by @vivoperformingarts.bsky.social and featuring Itzhak Perlman) captured the infectious joy of this wondrous musical genre. artsfuse.org/324533/conce...

Ed Symkus on the late pioneering American documentary filmmaker #FrederickWiseman. artsfuse.org/324562/arts-...

Larry Hardesty talks to composer George Steel about the new Thursday Night Music series at the Gardner Museum. It kicks off with #stevereich’s 1976 minimalist masterwork "Music for 18 Musicians," which has apparently never been performed by a professional group in Boston. artsfuse.org/323897/

In their book "Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters," poets #yusefkomunyakaa and Laren McClung’s goal — achieved through tag-team lyric utterance — is a noble spirituality, writes Michael Londra. @fsgbooks.bsky.social artsfuse.org/324232/poetr...

Debra Cash on the Trisha Brown Dance Company, presented by @vivoperformingarts.bsky.social: The question was how well these mid-20th-century works would hold up and how, with the passing of time, those dances would look to both familiar and fresh eyes. artsfuse.org/324433/dance...

Thomas F. Connolly on "When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy." The book argues, convincingly, that #SidCaesar’s genius wasn’t in what he did or said so much as in the anarchistic energy he encouraged his writers to unleash and harness. artsfuse.org/324271/book-...

Trevor Fairbrother heartily recommends "Sixties Surreal" @yalepress.bsky.social a hefty and engrossing catalogue for an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art that featured over 150 works in various media. artsfuse.org/324151/book-...

@sarahminaosman.bsky.social writes that, considering its hard-to-fault premise -- a campy, comedic mystery set in suburbia --the Peacock series "The ‘Burbs" should be a lot more fun than it is. artsfuse.org/324343/telev...

Martin Copenhaver writes that the true star of the @lyricstage.bsky.social production is Aimee Doherty, who is marvelous in the role of Penelope. artsfuse.org/324388/theat...

In "Ritual Practice/Sacred Space" at The Beehive, writes Lauren Kaufmann, curator Robin Hauck celebrates ten Boston-area artists who resist the relentless distractions that contemporary life imposes on all of us. artsfuse.org/324364/visua...

Tim Jackson writes that the ambitious and informative "Backbeats: A History of Rock and Roll in Fifteen Drummers" (@simonandschuster.bsky.social) tells a rich and detailed story, supplying a substantial survey of roughly seventy-five years of rock history. artsfuse.org/324289/book-...

Bill Littlefield writes that this biography of #paulemarshall provides a thorough consideration of the Black writer’s achievement and a convincing case that her fiction and her public speeches deserve continuing attention and respect. @yalepress.bsky.social artsfuse.org/323622/book-...

Hannah Brueske is skeptical of #TheMoment, a mockumentary #charlixcx conceived at the height of her "Brat" summer. In this film, Charli tries to prove that, though she’s welcomed stardom, major brand endorsements, awards, and celebrity friends, she’s still really cool. artsfuse.org/324316/film-...

Thomas F. Connolly writes that "Ethel Barrymore: Shy Empress of the Footlights" (University Press of Kentucky) briskly traces the First Lady of the American Theater's hallowed career, but brings to life neither the woman nor the stage world of her era. artsfuse.org/324167/book-...

@kuntsuragi.bsky.social on "Pillion": Despite the appeal of Heated Rivalry, the film is more interested in the transformative potential of a dom/sub relationship than it is in offering up the kind of sweaty, homosexual smut that’s attracting women in droves. artsfuse.org/324253/film-...

This week’s poem: Sarah Riggs’s “Song to Nefertiti from Brooklyn” artsfuse.org/324209/weekl...

Peter Keough writes that with its briskly intoxicating style, narrative aplomb, and masterful performances, #Crime1011 transforms pulpy material into a gripping entertainment with a satisfying, social justice subtext. artsfuse.org/324216/film-...

In this Short Fuse episode, host Elizabeth Howard speaks with Bsrat Mezghebe about her debut novel, “I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For.” @wwnorton.com artsfuse.org/324191/short...

Scott McLennan writes that in #Puscifer's powerful new album, "Normal Isn’t", the band is alarmed that so many values, including bedrock rights, are under attack, with real people getting hurt (in some cases killed) in the process. artsfuse.org/324110/rock-...

@kaimaristed.bsky.social writes that "The Moderate" at Central Square Theater is a consistently engaging and engaged, insightful, humorous, scarily moving, polished contemporary drama with a premise to die for. artsfuse.org/324136/theat...

@callinamagician.bsky.social writes that, since the film "Honey Bunch" is on #Shudder one might anticipate a crazed killer is lurking in the nearby woods. Refreshingly, the film’s horror is more personal than stereotypical, remixing the Gothic from a new perspective. artsfuse.org/323952/film-...