Frank Pizzoli

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, staff writer Frank Pizzoli interviews Tim Miller, the former communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC) during Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, and current MSNBC political analyst, writer-at-large at The Bulwark, and host of Snapchat’s Not My Party. Pizzoli’s article is part of the Village Voice’s ongoing series At 250, Who Will America Be?, which reports on threats to American democracy as we approach the nation’s Semiquincentennial, on July 4, 2026.

“An Independent voter, Miller lives in Oakland, California, with his husband, Tyler, and their daughter,” writes Pizzoli. “His new book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, is an autopsy on why so many “normal” people went along with the Trumpist excesses that now threaten our democratic system.”

Read more on the Village Voice here.

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, staff writer Michael Musto reviews a revival of Death of a Salesman, showing at the Hudson Theatre in NYC. Director Miranda Cromwell offers a fresh take on the 73-year-old play, which is based on Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic of the same name.

“The latest Broadway take tosses in some new elements; they work because they underline the play’s themes rather than turn them upside down,” writes Musto. “This time, Black actors have been cast as the Lomans, a switch that pays off. Willy’s achievements now seem that much more hard-earned, not to mention fraught, with an ongoing pressure that makes his demise even more comprehensible.”

Read more on the Village Voice here.

 

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, Food Editor Michele Stueven helps us say cheers to a Sober October. The concept of Sober October is derived from 2010 “Oscober” fundraiser held by the Australian youth health organization Life Education, later adapted as Sober October by the UK charity Macmillan Cancer Support. In the years since, the affinity for dedicated sobriety has grown, and as such, the demand for new and exciting non-alcoholic beverages. A demand which has been happily met by many a supplier both local and international.

“We recently caught up with Spencer Matthews, the British entrepreneur and television personality who is the founder of CleanCo, a non-alcoholic spirits company that includes non-alcoholic gin, rum, tequila and vodka alternatives that are sugar-free and vegan with fewer calories,” writes Stueven. “The liquids were created to replicate the mouth-feel sensation and flavor of their alcoholic counterparts.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Cheers To A Sober October

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, Culture Editor Lina Lecaro introduces this week’s L.A. Weekly Culture Pick: the new season of KCET’s culture series ARTBOUND, in particular the episode delving into Love and Rockets, the influential comic book. Lecaro has shown a spotlight on these topics in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month coming to a close, as it allows her to select on her culture through an Angeleno lens. “Sanctioned months, weeks and days spotlighting movements and identities are meant as reminders to the masses that we all have our struggles and stories, but of course, we should strive to support them all year long,” explains Lecaro. “As culture and entertainment editor at LA Weekly, this has always been the goal. That said, here are our picks spotlighting Latin expression right now as the entertainment and media worlds move on to the next.”

Writes Lecaro: “Gustavo Arellano’s recent column in the L.A. Times connected the dots on how remembering and honoring Laboe and the way he brought us together has been somewhat cleansing in the wake of the L.A. City Hall scandal. The council members ugly words have brought a lot of shame on our community and stoked division, already a big problem around the country. The fact that it all came out during Hispanic Heritage Month shouldn’t have necessarily made it worse, but it definitely dampened faith in those who represent us. Still, we have hope that music, art and entertainment created by Latin figures consumed with love, not hate, becomes more powerful moving forward.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Latin Heritage Picks: Love and Rockets, This Fool and Art Laboe

 

In their latest piece for L.A. Weekly, Music Editor Brett Callwood reviews the film Hellraiser. A reboot of the classic original, Hellraiser (2022) this new release is not a remake of the 1987 film of the same name. It’s an entirely different story, in fact, based on the story told in the ’86 Clive Barker novella The Hellbound Heart.

“This new movie has been referred to as a remake, but ‘reboot’ is more accurate. It’s an entirely different story from the original, so it could be a sequel if not for the recasting of the Priest,” writes Callwood. “Doug Bradley famously played the role of the Pinhead character for the first eight movies, then Stephen Smith Collins and Paul T. Taylor got one film each. In this new one, actress Jamie Clayton is sporting the pins, and of course, that gender switch has been met with accusations of “wokeness and virtue signaling” from clueless fuckwits. Those who read the novella know that Barker described the Priest as being feminine but without gender — it’s entirely true to the source material to cast a female in the role.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Hellraiser Reboot is Scarily Unscary

In their latest movie review for L.A. Weekly, critic Chad Byrnes reviews Târ, Todd Field’s latest film starring Cate Blanchett as Lydia Târ, a fictional conductor. The film follows as Târ is interviewed by real-life writer Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker Festival, which unfolds into the film’s exploration of how artists fit into the world at large.

“The opening interview also establishes Lydia’s backstory (a protégé of Bernstein’s, the head conductor of orchestras in Cleveland, New York, Boston, and now the Berlin Philharmonic) while providing a glimpse into her pathology,” writes Byrnes. “When asked about being a pioneer for women in classical music, Lydia sidesteps the question by saying that gender doesn’t define her. After the interview, Lydia meets some fans backstage. As she indulges the praise of a female admirer, her assistant, Francesca (Noémie Merlant), gratingly watches from the wings with the concerned look of someone who’s seen too many of her boss’ proclivities.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Cate Blanchett Falls From Grace in Todd Field’s Beautifully Conflicting Tár

In their latest movie review for L.A. Weekly, critic Michael Atkinson shares his thoughts on Amsterdam, the new David O. Russell film that takes place in the eponymous city. Viewers follow along as veterans Dr. Bert Berendsen (Christian Bale) and Harold Woodman (John David Washington), along with their hospital nurse and budding artiste Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie, as they live through an adventurous weekend.

“The movie Russell has constructed around them is, typically for the writer-director, a hundred things at once, and though it seems to muddle itself at times, with the director’s signature hullaballoo and off-kilter-ensemble vibe, it turns out to be a lovely thing—a nostalgic paean to friendship and selflessness,” writes Atkinson. “‘A lot of this really happened,’ an opening title reads—but not a lot, actually, just this: a non-event known on Wikipedia as the 1933 Business Plot (or, the Wall Street Putsch), in which a retired Marine general had alleged conversations with low-level representatives of Wall Street moneybags with the aim of staging a national coup and creating a Mussolini-style dictatorship, thereby preventing FDR from going nuts raising taxes on the rich and diverting resources to help the poor and jobless. The general testified before Congress to this effect, but everyone else denied knowing anything about it, and the matter was succinctly forgotten.Until now, pertinently enough.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Amsterdam‘s Off-Kilter Ensemble Takes on Historical Coup Plot

 

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, writer Michael Musto reviews Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, where the playwright “once again” threads emotion and heart through complex layers of history and legacy. Named after the Jewish quarter of Vienna, Leopoldstadt is an Olivier Award–winning play by the most Best-Play-Tony-winning playwright in history. 

“The already minimal danger that Leopoldstadt might be one of those Masterpiece Theatre-come-to-life experiences that are a little too good for you dissolves as the play becomes more complex and haunting and the production less high-pitched,” writes Musto. “What starts out as a chirpy gathering develops more gravitas in the face of the increasingly unavoidable creeping terror of Nazism. The years sweep by, and though it’s not always easy to figure out which character is related to whom, the play definitely gets more meaningful as things get grimmer.”

Read the full article on the Village Voice here.  

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, writer Michael Musto reviews the gender-switched 1776, a musical about the Declaration of Independence reimagined for the twenties. Based on the original 1969 musical of the same name by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards, the production centers on the ratification of the Declaration of Independence in the face of some counterproductive politicians, with some pertinent lessons for today’s Congress.

“Thankfully, you realize right away that—as directed by Diane Paulus (Pippin, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess) and Jeffrey L. Page (who also choreographed)—this isn’t any dusty, reverential revival,” writes Musto. “As the press materials explain, ‘The cast includes multiple representations of race, ethnicity, and gender; they identify as female, transgender and nonbinary.’ In other words, it includes everyone who was left out of the Declaration of independence. That historical document states, ‘All men are created equal,’ but this production makes clear that the signers didn’t really mean it. And so, much like Hamilton, the revival is doing a switcheroo, shedding a light on oppressed groups by giving them center stage and letting them ‘wear the pants.’”

Read the full article on the Village Voice here.

In their latest piece for L.A. Weekly, Arts Editor Shana Nys Dambrot introduces readers to media-mixing artist and designer Chris Burnett. Fresh off of a successful collaboration with The Prisoner Wine Company with the Corrections initiative – a program aiming to bring awareness to the challenges within the prison system across the United States – Burnett feels a sense of fulfillment in contributing to projects that have a tangible motive behind the work. Celebrated for his graphically robust and compellingly physical mixed media collages and resin works, learn more about artist Chris Burnett: 

“The deep and daily engagement with popular visual culture his design jobs require cannot help but seep into the intentions and contents of his abstract collages — the most recent results of which go on view in Portland this week,” writes Dambrot.

Read the full article on LAWeekly.com here.  

Meet Media-Mixing Artist and Designer Chris Burnett