Émile Zola

"Amazing Grace," a story of idealism, idealists and speaking truth to power, understands there is something inordinately moving and dramatic about a man who stands up for what is right and makes a difference in this life. The man in question is William...

Shiver me timbers R.L. Stine, author of the beloved "Goosebumps" series of creepy, crawly stories, is heading to "HorrorLand." The ghoulish theme park will be the springboard for 12 new tales, with Scholastic Books planning to release the first two...

FLOWERS, love letters and lipstick kisses by the hundreds - all so apropos of Paris, the world's capital of love and destination for romantics everywhere. But something was amiss. The scene was not a charming cafe, nor an elegant hotel room, nor a...

Crossword puzzles are a kind of "nerd thing" acknowledges champion puzzle solver Ellen Ripstein in Patrick Creadon's documentary "Wordplay." Even with academic competitions like the National Spelling Bee gaining recognition, crossword fanatics understand...

The winter feast of movie fools is upon us again, that silly time of the year when we seek order and reason in the Oscar nominations. One might just as well try to make sense of the strange jumble of produce that is growing moss in the fridge. All...

2½ stars (out of four) Natasha Richardson glides through the film version of Patrick McGrath's novel "Asylum" in various states of fear, desire and undress, a swan among Yorkshire frumps. As this placid tale of mad love unfolds, charting an affair...

The Big Easy comes off more like the Big Eh in "Thou Shalt Not," a gumbo-ized retelling of Emile Zola's "Therese Raquin" with tunes — some of them pretty tasty — written by Harry Connick Jr., receiving its Midwest premiere at Forest Park's Circle Theatre....

Not to be confused with the lovable guard dog in "Peter Pan," Nana is the battered heroine of Emile Zola's 1880 naturalistic novel, one of 20 books chronicling the Rougon-Macquarts family. The daughter of Gervaise (the equally beleaguered survivor of...

In Emile Zola's "Therese Raquin," the voracious anti-heroine's sensual recklessness is explained away by biology. It is a matter of physiological fact, what Zola termed the "fatalities of the flesh" leading to a bad end, though with some whomping...

DALLAS — Near the end of Tobias Picker's "Thirhse Raquin," the murderer Laurent says to his lover, "For two hours we have spoken and said nothing." Sadly, much the same could be said of Picker's new opera. The most anticipated event of the 2001-2002...

Minutes before the opening of his production of George Buchner's "Woyzeck," Nicholas Rudall could be seen pacing the sidewalk outside the National Pastime Theatre, the former speakeasy that's the latest home of the 10-year-old European Repertory Theatre....

1. DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (Robert Bresson; 1950) 4 stars Based on Georges Bernanos' novel, and a Grand Prize-winner at Venice, this is one of the cinema's greatest religious dramas. Set in the provincial town of Ambricourt, the film pits a devout but...