New York

Looking forward to this. Taking @justvanrossum’s @drawbotapp workshop last month was the best decision I’ve made this year. twitter.com/CooperType/sta…

Reminder: this is tonight. Come on down to @KnitFactoryBK or risk a life of regret. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Hey NYC, I’m judging the @usairguitar semifinal at @KnittingFactory on Friday. You probably don’t want to miss it. ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEv…

Plot-wise, Hounds of Love is in many ways a fairly by-the-numbers kidnapping / serial killer movie. But after a first act that hews uncomfortably close to crass, skin-crawling exploitation, its character development and attention to style are able to set it apart from less compelling grindhouse fare. Its success in those departments is noteworthy: Emma Booth’s fragile performance has rightly received a lot of praise, and the cinematography and score work well together to create… See more →

Godspeed, little barfing C train girl. 🤢

Wall-to-wall joy at the Revolution show tonight. I never got to witness the man himself, but I’m so glad I got to at least do this.

Much respect to the folks tasked with shepherding a classroom’s worth of small kids on a rush-hour subway train.

NYers who step onto the train and immediately plant yourselves in the open doorway, blocking everyone behind you:

Did your moms drop you?

Medicine.

Me: “Spring has sprung! Open the windows!” Omnipresent Loud-Ass Trucks: “HELLO”

In case any other New Yorkers are in the market for new glasses, here’s a map of shops that were recommended to me. drive.google.com/open?id=1KB9Q-…

Hey NYC, where do I go for the best eyeglass frames? Warby Parker is nice but kinda vanilla. Looking for something a bit bolder.

Alice Lowe was already well into her pregnancy when she was approached to make a film, and she managed to write, direct, and star in Prevenge before she gave birth, which is amazing. And there’s a lot to admire about its surrealist fusion of horror, comedy, and drama. But the final product doesn’t quite hang together.

Hey NYC friends, I have an extra ticket for the @TRTS show at @thehallbrooklyn tonight. Who wants to go with me?

Jordan Peele’s uncommon wit, keen perspective on racial identity, and perfect cast are unfortunately no match for Blumhouse’s insistent blandness.

If you are taking up space in Manhattan, you are in my way.

I’m amazed this role wasn’t written specifically for Isabelle Huppert, because no one else on the planet could have pulled it off.

When Ryan Gosling sings “City of Stars,” my ears editorialize it as “City of Cars,” but then he wins by making me wish I had nice hair too.

Stray thoughts:

• Going all in on CGI Peter Cushing was a bold move, but more than giving Rogue One a through line to A New Hope, it serves as another reminder that the uncanny valley isn’t paved over just yet.

• The introduction of moral ambiguity to the otherwise black and white Star Wars universe is not unwelcome per se, but Cassian isn’t interesting enough to give it any real weight. (Really, none of the characters… See more →

Tonight I got to see Megadeth play in a room a little bigger than my apartment and it was very very great.

This city is an embarrassment of riches. twitter.com/magary/status/…

I ❤️ @nitehawkcinema. nitehawkcinema.com/series/the-nit…

I loved @essl’s talk yesterday on how @cooperunion has influenced each step of his life in design. Good medicine for the will to make stuff.

Empty and ugly, The New York Ripper is content to have its inscrutable serial killer revel in the seediest corners of early-’80s NYC without the benefit of a remotely compelling narrative. It’s all cheap and no thrills, but I’ll give it some credit for being extremely skeevy, which I took to be its lone goal.

Exquisitely overdone in every respect, and entirely a product – and rebuke – of its time. This was clearly a lot of fun to make, is in turn a lot of fun to watch, and its theme song will get stuck in your head for weeks.

Opening with a newspaper headline about a murderous orgy, I thought this pre-Code thriller might be a bit more scandalous. Luckily, what it lacks in shocks it makes up for in unintentional farce.

If Hitchcock had a predilection for the supernatural, it might have looked something like Cat People. The suspense it creates in a few keys scenes – both in terms of their staging and the psychosexual premise that drives them – is among the boldest I’ve seen from 1940s-era horror.

The gags fly fast and furious in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but not nearly enough of them land. Compared to the duo’s electric “Who’s on First?” routine, the humor here is stilted.

Lon Chaney Jr, who embodies few of the characteristics of the traditional leading man, creates a character so apparently charismatic that his love interest is unfazed to learn he is an unapologetic peeping tom. But the real star of the show here is the cinematography, whose mist and moonlight cloak the misadventures of Chaney’s otherwise fairly silly werewolf in artful dread.

The initial appearance of Boris Karloff’s mummy is properly arresting, but most of what follows is a snooze.

SoHo and my bike bell were made for each other.

Shellac and Shannon Wright at the Bell House tonight. It was really really good.

NYC friends: I’m showing Hollywood horror classics The Mummy (1932) and The Wolf Man (1941) at Small City on Friday! smallcity.us/events/2016/10…

Recalling the confined paranoia of Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy, and, more recently, The Babadook’s exploration of grief and maternal anxiety, Under the Shadow is an effective chiller set in Tehran during the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s. When her husband is drafted by the military, Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is left alone to care for her daughter as bombs fall on Tehran and her neighbors flee the city. Still stinging from a medical school rejection… See more →