home
web journal
journal archive
www.rogovoy.com | seth@rogovoy.com

| Concert Calendar | Cultural Calendar | About This Blog | About Seth Rogovoy |
| Live Appearances and Lectures | The Rogovoy Report Archive | South Berkshire Minyan | Disclaimer |


   rogovoy.com    Web   
5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home



5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller



5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever



5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report



5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21



5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm



5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF



5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend



6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....



5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak



5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy





every article is indexed here
journal archive
FILM REVIEW: Please Give

6.22.10



PLEASE GIVE
Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener
Starring Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt


Reviewed by Seth Rogovoy


This delightfully dark black comedy about a married couple that scavenges the apartments of dead people for furniture they then sell at incredible markups in a Soho-style shop and a couple of adult sisters tending to their 91-year-old nasty grandmother who lives next door to the couple is a tour-de-force of character acting that examines real issues of what it means to care and give – to be a caregiver, in other words.


You can’t give without someone taking, and the film doesn’t shy away from the different ways in which people accept the role of taker.


In a film chock full of conflicted characters, Keener, as always, is brilliant, attractive, and complex, but so are Peet, Platt, and the movie’s revelation, Rebecca Hall. Platt is literally the odd-man-out in a film that luxuriates in its examination of what it means to be a woman: a mother, a daughter, a wife, a lover, a nurse, etc.


Holofcener’s scenes capture real New York in a way that few have since Woody Allen’s best films of the 1970s, and her opening montage of mammograms is a stunning visual metaphor for what the entire film is about. It’s too bad she had to tack a sentimental ending on the movie, but otherwise it’s off-pitch-perfect.


Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s award-winning editor-in-chief and cultural critic.






...sites that work