review by Will Gottlieb
Coastal Journal staff

"Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen's love letter to the City of Lights, is without question Allen's most successful offering of the new millennium. It's neither over-the-top goofy or overly self-serious, but rather a thematic extension of "Hannah and Her Sisters," a mature look into the mechanisms of love and attachment, of delusion and illusion. He's not making any big, transcendent points here, but just taking us all for a bittersweet ride.

The story of "Midnight in Paris" runs thus: A young couple visits present-day Paris to celebrate their upcoming wedding. But there is dissonance in the match. Gil (Owen Wilson) is there to experience the Paris beloved by artists and writers for centuries, whereas Inez (Rachel McAdams) is basically there to shop. And as the story unfolds, Inez is reunited with a former flame, whereas Gil the hack screenwriter is "reunited" with his first love – Literature, with a capital "L" – and is magically transported to the ideal Paris of the 1920s, where he meets Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Josephine Baker, among other luminaries. He tries to bring Inez along, but she can't be bothered. Can this couple be saved? Should this couple be saved?

by L. Jaye Bell
Coastal Journal contributor

Mary Barnes has been creating intuitively for as long as she can remember, letting her imagination go wild to create works inspired by outdoor discoveries on long walks near her home in midcoast Maine.

Barnes contemplates the presence and placement of things; she herself Alice in Wonderland style into the tiniest of spaces, and asks, "What would it be like to be inside the reindeer antler moss?" Mary begins her work with such essential questions, yet without a plan or end vision in sight, she imagines herself in the leaves, moss and tiny spaces of the natural world.

by June Phinney
Coastal Journal contributor

HARPSWELL — Harpswell Community Theater, in its 9th season, will present two one-act comedies, "Murder at the Banquet" by Robert LaVohn and "Not My Cup of Tea" by A. F. Groff.

Productions take place at Centennial Hall, Route 123, Harpswell Center at 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 5; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 6; and 2 p.m. Sunday, August 7. Light refreshments will be served at intermission.

Tickets are $5 per person. Early purchase is recommended as performances often sell out. For more information, call 725-2438, 833-2364, or 833-6260. Box Office hours are 5 to 7 p.m., Monday through Thursday, August 1 through 4, at Centennial Hall, Harpswell Center, Route 123.