In MARGINALIA, side notes take center stage

There are a couple other gems-a poignant lament on our mortality evokes a scornful “everyone dies, so what?” and a passage replete with descriptive phrases yields the incredibly helpful note: “lots of adjectives.” Of course my favorite has to be the note on page 207, when, following around 206 pages of verse, the commentator underlines a phrase and adds an astute observation: “poetry!” Why yes, so it is. One either loves or hates marginalia, and I’m sure no one loves marginalia quite as much as

'Before Night Falls' explores both politics and poetry

Schnabel’s film tackles one of the most difficult genres in filmmaking-biography-and succeeds not only in telling the life story of gay dissident and writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) in alternately beautiful and grotesque episodes, but ultimately transforms the story of the writer’s struggle into a cutting statement on the survival of art despite, or maybe because of, the most appalling circumstances. Never heavy-handed, painter-turned-filmmaker Schnabel captures the desperate poverty of