Victor Feldman – The Artful Dodger

Expressionistic noir photography suffuses David Lean’s Oliver Twist with a nightmarish quality, fitting its bleak, industrial setting. In Dickens’ classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home. Here Alec Guinness is the quintessential Fagin, his controversial performance fully restored in Criterion’s digital transfer.

Executive Intelligence zeros in on leadership smarts and notes that in all lists compiled by leadership experts, head hunters, and boards of directors the one and only trait that appears in all is intelligence. Obvious? No, because typically leadership savvy regularly trumps smarts.

The latest studio album from Chris Murphy, The Tinker’s Dream, is a winner from the start and never disappoints. Murphy’s growing discography and long list of guest starring credits as made him one of the most respected instrumental talents in any genre currently working on the modern music scene and he shows a willingness to tackle any sort of material. Moreover, he has the skill to go into any style and make it his own. His talents as an arranger and composer cannot be overlooked. Nine out of the album’s dozen tracks are instrumentals, but they all sing with musical grace thanks to the abundant melodies created from Murphy’s violin and his fine accompanying musicians. The non-instrumental tracks have broad-based merit as well; Murphy might not demonstrate the same fiery command over his vocal chords that he possesses over his fiddle strings, but he’s more than capable of turning in a good lyric and embodying the story in his delivery.