Katie Foran-McHale
'Awakening' complex discussions on campus
By Katie Foran-McHale | Apr. 23, 2010Poverty, disease, war, oppression and sexual assault are just some of the incredibly complex issues in ""The Awakening: The Hip-Hopera,"" a new hip-hop musical featuring music by Rihanna.
Kate Nash 'Best' at expressing range of enigmatic emotions
By Katie Foran-McHale | Apr. 19, 2010Kate Nash's playfulness on her debut album, Made of Bricks, won her a BRIT award in 2008. Her lighthearted malice and overall quirkiness—not quite Lily Allen's smug vindictiveness, not quite the innocently traumatized personas of Regina Spektor—can be captivating. This coyness, matched with a drastically dynamic array of songs, is what makes My Best Friend is You memorable.
Scorsese stumbles on slow-moving 'Shutter'
By Katie Foran-McHale | Feb. 21, 2010Director Martin Scorsese attracts audiences with a creepily promising premise in his long-awaited new release, ""Shutter Island."" The attraction to solving the film's mystery lasts well into its second half, but the resolution is annoyingly groan-producing and contrived.
'Turn of the Screw' a must-see
By Katie Foran-McHale | Jan. 28, 2010Emotional turmoil and chaos reign in Madison Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's ""The Turn of the Screw,"" playing in the Playhouse at the Overture Center this weekend.
A rewarding, unconventional 'Education'
By Katie Foran-McHale | Nov. 23, 2009Clever, realistic and well developed, ""An Education"" investigates how to acquire diverse types of knowledge, and examines how much one person can sacrifice in pursuit of it.In 1961 London, 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan), is a brilliant yet bored student preparing to apply to Oxford. A beautiful girl with lofty standards, she has high school suitors who could never hope to measure up to her abilities (one helplessly bumbles over a simple French phrase she coyly mentions). Enter David (Peter Sarsgaard), a cultured but uneducated man twice her age, who offers her a ride home one day. A relationship blossoms between them as David opens up a new world to Jenny, taking her to chamber concerts, jazz clubs and art galleries.
'Coco' biopic standard
By Katie Foran-McHale | Nov. 8, 2009Although it shows promise in certain nuances and is thoroughly well designed, Anne Fontaine's ""Coco Before Chanel"" offers a somewhat narratively contrived tale of Gabrielle ""Coco"" Chanel's life before becoming France's legendary fashion designer.
Board of Estimates discusses amendments, funding issues
By Ben Schultz and Katie Foran-McHale | Oct. 27, 2009Nineteen amendments to Madison's 2010 Executive Operating Budget were discussed at the Board of Estimates meeting Monday night.
Racial disparities report shows need for improvement
By Katie Foran-McHale | Sep. 30, 2009Recommendations for reducing racial inequalities in Dane County's criminal justice system were revealed by the Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in a report released on its findings Wednesday.
WUD Society and Politics hosts town-hall style health-care debate
By Katie Foran-McHale | Sep. 17, 2009In an attempt to generate discussion on health-care reform, the Wisconsin Union Directorate's Society and Politics Committee kicked off the year Wednesday with a town hall-style Q&A session led by a panel of Madison-area experts.