CITY

If spring really and truly hangs you up the most, whether it is the standard-bearing song by Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf or the re-jiggering of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, then this month’s THE LIST column isn’t really for you, is it. Begone, or just hang here and wait for winter, grouch.

No matter what religion you practice or don’t, the annual tradition of the South Street Headhouse District Easter Promenade — this year on Sunday, April 9 at 12:30 p.m. — is a treat. Always led by Halloween’s inimitable host-with-the-most holiday-appropriate costume changes, Henri David, this year’s Easter strut, celebrates its 90th anniversary. And, of course, children and grown-ups will come dressed in their Sunday best, so expect a visit from the Easter Bunny, who judges the best-dressed contests. But please get your Easter picture taken with Henri David — he is the jewel in that and any crown.

Stand-up comedian and dramatic actor Adam Sandler — a Philadelphia favorite, what with Netflix’s locally-filmed basketball dramedy of

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A.D. Amorosi is a Los Angeles Press Club National Art and Entertainment Journalism award-winning journalist and national public radio host and producer (WPPM.org’s Theater in the Round) married to a garden-to-table cooking instructor + award-winning gardener, Reese, and father to dogdaughter Tia.

Showing Up (Dir. Kelly Reichardt). Starring: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, André Benjamin. The Portland, Oregon art scene provides the backdrop for cowriter-director Kelly Reichardt’s deceptively low-key drama. The focus initially seems to be the rivalry between sculptors Lizzy (Michelle Williams) and Jo (Hong Chau); the latter is also the former’s absentee-to-a-fault landlord, which provides for a very funny and relatable running gag about a lack of hot water. But Reichardt and her co-scenarist Jon Raymond’s perspective quickly broadens to take in and sketch the distinct personalities of the people — friends and family both — who surround Lizzy and Jo. A vivid portrait of a longenduring community emerges. And even touches that seem at first too symbolic (such as the injured pigeon that Lizzy nurses back to health over the course of the film) prove to have a larger, more mysterious purpose. Reichardt’s best movies manage to touch the sublime in the most unexpected of ways, and Showing Up is a prime example of that.

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Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, and ICON. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. His personal website is (All (Parentheses)), accessible at keithuhlich.substack.com.

Cocaine Bear (Dir. Elizabeth Banks). Starring: Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta. Among its many sins, director Elizabeth Banks’ and screenwriter Jimmy Warden’s execrable comic exploitation film futzes up a reunion of the central trio from the great TV series The Americans, wasting a try-hard Keri Russell, a cameoing Matthew Rhys, and a game-as-ever Margo Martindale in this grisly tale of a grizzly bear that goes on a murderous rampage after ingesting several kilos of cocaine. In the words of William Hurt’s mobster character from David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, “How do you fuck that up?!?” The answer is repeatedly, via chintzy CGI (the bear never once looks like it exists in the same space as the performers), jaw-droppingly inept staging, and a smugly sentimental subtheme about trans-species mother love (I wish I were joking). All this and an ill-used Ray Liotta in his sadly final role? Bare those claws and tear this thing to shreds!

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How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Dir. Daniel Goldhaber). Starring: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage. Director Daniel Goldhaber and co-writers Ariela Barer and Jordan Sjol turn Andreas Malm’s 2021 cli- learned that, as a musician, your sound is the first thing people get to know about you — before who you are or what else you do — so you have to make it count. You’re preparing them for your message. So, your pitch and your timbre are crucial in that introduction.”

That is something that saxophonist and composer Lakecia Benjamin told me about recording her exquisite Pursuance : The Coltranes (which contained six briskly expressionist covers, each by Alice and John Coltrane) as well as her teaming with New School college buddy, pianist Georgia Anne Muldrow on the latter’s Mama album.

Between what Benjamin has executed elegantly on Pursuance, her conversation around jazz, and her sisterly devotion to Muldrow, I knew we had to speak again.

I didn’t realize that Benjamin would have to tragically endure a horrific accident, first — in September 2021, returning from a Cleveland Tri-C Jazz Festival gig where she would fracture her jaw and collarbone and break her scapula. After