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Death penalty possible for Watland

Prison Murder
Gary Watland, the brilliant and mentally ill convicted murderer whose 2006 scheme to have his wife smuggle a loaded handgun into the Maine State Prison in Warren was foiled when another prisoner tipped off officials, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of a second murder.
By LANCE TAPLEY | May 26, 2010

Cool killer

Ace Atkins runs down Machine Gun Kelly
Ace Atkins’s new novel is what the movie Public Enemies should have been.
By CHARLES TAYLOR | May 18, 2010

Springtime for Militia

Gun nuts from around the country converge upon the murder capital of the nation, Washington, D.C.
I’m scrubbing my armpits in the campground bathroom at Fort Hunt Park in Virginia. It’s taken more than 20 hours for me to get here for today’s firearm-friendly Restore the Constitution rally, which is supposed to commence shortly.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 21, 2010

'Tea' is for terrorism

When even the most ‘legitimate’ voices of the right validate dangerously unhinged anti-government rhetoric — DUCK!
A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produced a memo outlining the growing threat posed to this country from right-wing extremists. It compared the situation to that of the early 1990s — which culminated in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 12, 2010

Review: Heavy Rain

A haunting thriller for PlayStation 3
Is Heavy Rain a game or a movie? Players have been asking the question since before its release.
By MITCH KRPATA | March 11, 2010

Review: Formosa Betrayed

Newsflash: All was not rosy during the Reagan years
Had Adam Kane's Formosa Betrayed come out 25 years ago, it might have been an eye-opening exposé.
By PETER KEOUGH | March 01, 2010

Secret Harbor

The real-life version of Scorsese's Shutter Island imports hundreds of homeless from the South End every evening; they’re among the few allowed on Boston Harbor’s isle of mystery.
A home for the criminally insane it might not be, but the real-life Shutter Island is, like the one in the new Martin Scorsese film that hits theaters this week, a spooky and controversial land mass in Boston Harbor that is indeed off-limits to the public.
By CHRISTOPHER KLEIN | February 17, 2010

Interview: Daniel Ellsberg

"The Most Dangerous Man in America" talks on the documentary about him and his time at the Pentagon
"By ordinary standards of presidents, Obama is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough."
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 16, 2010

Play by play: February 5, 2010

Plays from A to Z
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 03, 2010

Play by Play: January 29, 2010

Theater listings, January 29, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 27, 2010

History plays

The Good Negro from Company One; Harriet Jacobs in Central Square; Indulgences at New Rep
Tracey Scott Wilson manages to knock off Martin Luther King Jr.'s halo without removing the glow.
By CAROLYN CLAY | January 29, 2010

Play by play: January 22, 2010

Theater listings, January 22, 2010
Boston's weekly theatre schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 20, 2010

Play by play: January 15, 2010

Theater listings, January 15, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 13, 2010

Scientology defector tells all

Many's Rivers to Cross Dept.
If every last allegation that Church of Scientology (CoS) defector Nancy Many charges in My Billion Year Contract is true, then her book should inspire several FBI raids and a Lifetime mini-series to rival any Charles Manson documentary.
By CHRIS FARAONE | January 13, 2010

Looking back, going forward

A diverse display for 2010
Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire.
By MADDY MYERS | January 13, 2010

Battle of the Bulger

Former Mass. Sen. Pres. William Bulger defends James Michael Curley's legacy — and his own
Earlier this fall, with almost no fanfare, Beverly-based Commonwealth Editions published a new biography of Boston's archetypal politician — James Michael Curley: A Short Biography with Personal Reminiscences — written by former Massachusetts Senate president William Bulger.
By ADAM REILLY | December 16, 2009

Courthouse bomber to speak about social change

Censorship averted
After it was initially canceled, a controversial talk by a radical activist will go on Thursday at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Ray Luc Levasseur, who grew up in Sanford, Maine, and became a radical in part due to his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, will talk on campus in connection with a symposium on “social change.”
By RICK WORMWOOD | November 11, 2009

For Mayor: Vote Flaherty + Yoon

Boston District City Council: Henriquez, Ross, ciommo, LaMattina
Boston’s mayoral candidates are running campaigns that are variations on a theme.
By EDITORIAL | November 04, 2009

Hardboiled hub

The city’s gritty, criminal underbelly has redefined the dark, artistic vision known as Boston noir
When I was growing up in Roslindale a few decades back — among tribes of ignorant, second-generation immigrant kids whose favorite words began with “f” and “n” and who liked to torture small animals and beat up small children before they moved on to their future vocations as petty criminals, dead dope users, or real-estate agents.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 21, 2009

Course correction

Out of school and out of work? Don’t enroll in a grad program just yet — adult-education coures could do (and land you) the job.
So it unfolded on Facebook, the story of this down-on-his-luck recent graduate in possession of a bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts from a respected area school.
By VANESSA CZARNECKI | October 14, 2009

Burn, baby, burn

The Olympics, zipper-gate, stimulus money, and why Coakley must investigate City Hall
The Phoenix opposed President Barack Obama's efforts to help Chicago win the 2016 Summer Olympics on the grounds that doing business with the International Olympic Committee is always bad news for the host community.
By EDITORIAL | October 07, 2009

Injustice everywhere

Letters to the Portland Editor, October 9, 2009
Thank you for the timely interview with Harvey Silverglate.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | October 07, 2009

Review: Surrogates

Philip K. Dick-ian premise deserves better
Some day in the future — or is it right now? — people will be replaced by surrogate robots, superhuman automatons who live out big-screen fantasies while their hosts, with their greasy hair and bad skin, sit back in wired-up La-Z-Boys.
By PETER KEOUGH | September 30, 2009

What's the scam?

Trying to bilk the Scientologists
Back on the morning of June 7, 1982, a man walked into the New York branch of the Middle East Bank on the 25th floor of a Madison Avenue office building and tried to deposit a $2 million check. The man, a native of the United Arab Emirates, left without completing the transaction.
By JIM SCHUH | September 28, 2009

Review: The Informant!

Soderbergh's state of cornfusion
The Informant! opens with a segment that sounds as if it had been culled from Food, Inc.
By PETER KEOUGH | September 16, 2009

A Tale of Two Towns

Renowned for its roguish history, Charlestown is finally getting Hollywood's attention
Charlestown was baptized in bloodshed. Yet this unique, fertile turf has been generally overlooked by Hollywood, which has preferred instead its old rival South Boston, the primary backdrop for Oscar winners Good Will Hunting and The Departed .
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 29, 2009

I remember when...

(Or at least I think I do)
It's been a while, and I've been here for all of it. These moments are what I remember best, and what I wish there was more evidence of.
By MARC SHEPARD | September 16, 2009

Review: G-Force

Surprisingly satirical
A hero named Darwin and a convoluted plot about "global extermination" are the first clues that director Hoyt Yeatman isn't taking the cute route with his cast of animated guinea pigs.
By ALICIA POTTER | July 28, 2009

Larry's Kidney

Being the true story of how I found myself in China with my black-sheep cousin and his mail-order bride, skirting the law to get him a transplant — and save his life
In this nonfiction account pretty accurately described by the book's subtitle, Daniel Asa Rose accompanies his nebbishy but mobbed-up relative on a mission for a Chinese two-fer: to get the organ he desperately needs and — why not, as long as we're here? — a wife, to boot. In this excerpt, the author first hears about his cousin's dubious — and, according to Chinese law, illegal — plan.
By DANIEL ASA ROSE | July 22, 2009