Author Archive

Book Review: Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart

Written by Mark Peikert on March 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Books, NY Press Exclusive

At a time when celebrity biographies are frequently clocking in above the 500-page mark (Peter Biskind’s Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, ended at 627 pages—and that’s skipping Beatty’s pre-fame years), Stefan Kanfer’s 304-page Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart is a relief. As lean and succinct as a
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Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony

Written by Mark Peikert on March 14, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Theater

Kathy Griffin paints herself as a Broadway innocent during her one-woman show Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony, but she can’t help but prove her theatrical bona fides with a joke in her Playbill bio. Buried among fictional Broadway credits, Griffin lists Dead Whore in Neil LaBute’s I Hate You But I Won’t Say It Till It Can Do The
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Book Review: Stories I Only Tell My Friends

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Books

Like his character on The West Wing, White House speechwriter Sam Seaborn, Rob Lowe stays admirably on message in his new memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. He’s at pains to paint himself as a grounded, levelheaded man who has (mostly) successfully navigated the rapids of early fame and success, debilitating personal crises and then a
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TV Review: The Killing

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, TV

By the end of the first hour, you will probably want to punch in the face every character of AMC’s newest brooding drama, The Killing. Detective Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) is packing up on her last day in Seattle, preparing to fly down to San Diego with her young son to live with her fiancé in
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TV Review: Chaos & Breaking In

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, TV

The revival of the workplace sitcom has given us 30 Rock and even FX’s Archer—but it has also now given us Chaos and Breaking In, two willfully wacky shows that fall flat as they try to add a new twist to the office environment. Chaos, which premiered April 1 on CBS, is an hour-long dramedy about working for the CIA
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Book Review: Sisters of Fortune

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Books

Imagine if, instead of finding defeat at the hands of those crafty, debauched Europeans, Henry James’ heroines triumphed, and found love, money and social position across the Atlantic? The result would be something like the real lives of Maryland’s Caton sisters—Marianne, Louisa, Bess and Emily, vividly recreated by biographer Jehanne Wake in Sisters of Fortune. Beautiful,
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Keeping Watch Off-Off Broadway

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Theater

When your job revolves around going to the theater, you discover little pleasures that the more casual theatergoer can’t experience. Chief among these (other than knowing which theater is so prone to bottlenecking that you must leave before curtain call to make it out with any speed) is getting the chance to follow the careers
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TV Review: The Borgias

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, TV

No one in Showtime’s new soap opera—er, historical drama—The Borgias is having a good time. Not Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander, not any of the actors playing his children, followers or enemies, and certainly not the audience. The over-the-top story of the Borgia family, fraught with poisonings, treachery, possible incest and papal abuse, cries out for
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TV Review: Body of Proof

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, TV

There are three (potentially overlapping) distinct audiences for ABC’s new medical drama Body of Proof: Fans of the genre, fans of Dana Delaney and anyone who is sick of office politics. Delaney’s medical examiner can’t be bothered with being politic; she’s there to do a job, and do it well. And anyone who has a problem
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Lucinda Williams at Webster Hall

Written by Mark Peikert on February 24, 2011. Posted in Arts & Film, Music

Lucinda Williams is like the Lotte Lenya of country music. She’ll rasp along melodically enough, and then suddenly snatch a note out of thin air, massage it with vibrato, and the song becomes heartbreaking despite its head-nodding beat. Her husky contralto wraps around her songs about Southern life, heartbreak and, less frequently, optimism as if
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