Table and Teaser
Review July 2023 articles and preview August stories
Have you ever been to a circus?
The 30th season of American Experience on PBS chronicles Big Top entertainment from Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling brothers to side shows, Jumbo, clowns, profits, acrobatics, deadly fires and the origins, philosophy and Americanism of this rare and daring art form. Read my television series review.
Also this month, read reviews of the heralded Oppenheimer, the 2020 Manson Family Helter Skelter mass murder series, and an exclusive review of the film adaptation of Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic 1957 novel On the Beach. The movie version, appearing on a Blu-Ray edition, also reviewed, co-stars Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck.
But the Melbourne, Australia-based character, performance and role to watch is Julian—the memorable Grand Prix race car driver in the book—by a movie star with whom Autonomia readers are familiar. The article’s part of the Friday with Fred Astaire series. His drunken Julian marks Fred Astaire’s first dramatic screen role. He doesn’t dance in On the Beach, which does feature a dance scene.
I can (and will) dance for one more week at a bar I recently discovered near the beach in Santa Monica. I found the place this summer after a long, fruitless 30-year search for a decent place to dance. This week, I learned that the bar’s coming to end in August. Read the story as I deliver the bar—which opened its doors in 1949—its history, staff and owner their due in another article for Just Deserts.
Table of contents
July’s contents include:
Series review of Helter Skelter (2020) about Charles Manson’s mass murder
Movies: Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer (paid subscribers only)
Friday with Fred Astaire: On the Beach (paid subscribers only)
Teaser
August articles will feature new stories about:
Another picture in the Sylvester Stallone Movies series
This Date in History
Points in Pittsburgh featuring a review of the Andy Warhol Museum
Aaron Sorkin’s theatrical stage version of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Thirty Years in the Press: The News
Liza Minnelli Movies
Book reviews, announcements and TV reviews
Autonomia is a free and independent press publishing for its third year in 2023. Free readers can upgrade to a paid subscription. A gift subscription is an ideal birthday, graduation or encouragement gift. Paid Autonomia subscriptions support the ability to research, write, edit, produce and promote the articles. Table and Teaser is a free monthly preview of coming stories with a table of previous contents.
Related articles
Autonomia is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.