George Blecher
The 62nd New York Film Festival: A Mixed Bag
Our reviewer did his best. But even with an abundance of movies to choose from, this year’s offerings weren’t quite as good as he’d hoped...
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George Blecher
Sep 15 min read
Taking the Plunge: Swimming Places We Loved
Late-summer memories of magical swimming spots, past and present, in Yonkers and Port Washington, not to mention Singapore and Tokyo—plus...
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George Blecher
Apr 204 min read
Edible Memories: At Le Café Arnold, Chicken Flambé and V8 juice
European elegance—slightly ersatz—at a French establishment that was once a mainstay on Central Park South By George Blecher April 19,...
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George Blecher
Mar 64 min read
Job at Alphabet City’s Connelly Theater: An Ecstatic Review
Spellbinding. Nothing short of phenomenal. So says our reviewer, George Blecher, of this 80-minute two-hander that starts out as a...
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George Blecher
Oct 30, 202312 min read
Art Cinema—An Endangered Species?
A rundown of six New York Film Festival films (two of them terrific; the rest—not so much), plus concerns about serious films in the age...
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George Blecher
Aug 24, 20235 min read
I’ll Never Forget … Billie Holiday, June 15, 1957
The night the music came alive at the Loew’s Sheridan Theatre, New York City By George Blecher The main event: Billie Holiday topping the...
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George Blecher
Jun 13, 202315 min read
The City as Desire
A child of the boroughs ventures forth in midcentury Manhattan By George Blecher Photos by Angelo Rizzuto. Library of Congress, Prints &...
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George Blecher
Dec 27, 20225 min read
Our Book Reviews are Back. Part 1: Fiction
We start with four novels, telling tales—and tales within tales. Because…isn’t reality overrated? The Swedish writer Lina Wolff wears her...
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George Blecher
Oct 31, 20226 min read
Leopoldstadt on Broadway: A Review
Tom Stoppard’s highly anticipated take on the tragedy of Austro-German Jews is only occasionally riveting By George Blecher 1899: Two...
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Jul 30, 202210 min read
The Promiscuous Gardener
Riffing on the sly and guileful beauty of roses By George Blecher The author, no doubt about to get thorn-scratched as he tends the...
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Apr 29, 20226 min read
A Misbegotten Macbeth Descends on Broadway
The knives are out in this scathing review of the Sam Gold production starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga By George Blecher APRIL 28,...
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Feb 2, 20225 min read
Boy Wonder at Mid-Career
Paul Thomas Anderson’s rollicking, serious, endearing Licorice Pizza is well worth a trip to a movie theater. It’s an eccentric take on...
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Dec 4, 20216 min read
The Lehman Trilogy—A Probing Critique
Super-professional acting, glossy production—but do they make a full theatrical meal? Is this play any more than an inflated biopic? By...
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Dec 4, 202113 min read
Guilty Pleasures in Covid Time
Want to be enticed by movies again? These offerings from this year’s 59th Lincoln Center Film Festival will do it By George Blecher Table...
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Jul 22, 20203 min read
Stunned City
After three months away from New York, my first impression was that someone had hit it in the stomach with a baseball bat. The city...
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May 20, 20205 min read
I Left My Troubled City Behind. Now I Feel Guilty.
My adult son, worried about my health, urged me to flee. But New York doesn’t let go easily. I didn’t want to leave the city. If the...
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Apr 20, 202014 min read
Ghosts on the Landing
Selected as a Notable Essay of 2020 in Best American Essays of 2021, edited by Kathryn Schultz and Robert Atwan. The following is an...
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Aug 3, 201813 min read
Murder, Politics and Architecture: The Making of Madison Square Park
LATELY, MADISON SQUARE PARK has provided a staging area for provocative art installations, pop-up food courts and outdoor work spaces....
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Aug 15, 20135 min read
Bound to a Place, Despite Life’s Thorns
I owned the cottage right from the beginning. Or it owned me. For one thing, it was so old. Later we found it on maps dating back to the...
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May 7, 20137 min read
David Foster Wallace: Innocence and Experience
He pointed a way for American fiction out of the doldrums of postmodernism, writes George Blecher. For a culture troubled by the...
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