Review

Comic strips were what made me want to be an artist. There’s no straight line to be drawn between them and my graphic design career, but few people have influenced me creatively as much as Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes) and Gary Larson (The Far Side) did in my formative years. So I had hoped that Stripped, a documentary about comic strips and the people who make them, would give me a new angle from… See more →

As a fan of the sort of slapstick gore found in movies like Dead Alive and Re-Animator, I had long looked forward to seeing Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. It delivers several gems of cartoon violence, and the over-the-top acting and inept dialogue are frequently funny, but the almost total lack of an actual story makes the scenes between the action too much of a slog.

The Mexican drug war has claimed over 100,000 lives since 2006, and much of the violence has taken place in the city of Juarez, just across the US/Mexico border from El Paso, TX. Narco Cultura examines the conflict chiefly through two sets of eyes: those of Richi Soto, a crime scene investigator who works an endless procession of homicides in Juarez, and those of Edgar Quintero, a Mexican-American in LA who is making a burgeoning… See more →

Ellis is a 14-year-old boy living on a river in rural Arkansas who desperately needs to believe love can succeed. The dissolution of his parents’ marriage and his floundering attempts at teen romance don’t give him much hope, but a chance encounter with a mysterious man who seems to be the very embodiment of “love conquers all” offers Ellis a glimmer of validation. Known only as Mud, the man also happens to be a fugitive,… See more →

Whether they’re grappling with the side effects of success or (more likely) licking the wounds of failure, I don’t have much sympathy for people trying to be superstars. And as much as 20 Feet from Stardom is primarily an affectionate profile of some of pop’s most noteworthy backup singers, it spends a little too much time entertaining assertions that these (mostly) women’s status as historical footnotes is some kind of gross injustice.

Granted, it’s not… See more →

After having their records in steady rotation for several months, tonight I heard Whores the right way. Best live band I’ve seen in ages.

Last night’s Nothing show was way more of a punk thing than I expected; it isn’t the dominant vibe I get from the record. Not a bad thing.

Veronica Mars has a lot of work to do. For the cult following of the TV series that spawned it, it needs to be a reunion, and for the potential fans who never saw that series, it needs to be an introduction. The series’ third season attempted a similar balancing act, eschewing the first two seasons’ year-long, serialized story arcs in favor of standalone episodes that wouldn’t put off new viewers unfamiliar with the backstory.… See more →

I don’t begrudge Thelma & Louise its iconic feminism – and it’s sad that a major motion picture asserting that women deserve to be treated like human beings is still revolutionary more than twenty years later – but the on-the-nose catharsis that defines the film also holds it back. As a pair of friends whose weekend vacation goes awry when one of them guns down a would-be rapist, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are an… See more →

No matter how many times I see The Silence of the Lambs, it is engrossing from start to finish. Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter is unforgettable, but only as a foil for Jodie Foster’s much more sober Clarice Starling, without whom Lecter would be little more than a cartoon. Countless imitators tried and failed to replicate that magic, including Lambs’ two sequels. The leads anchor the film, and everything else falls into place around them.

It always seemed to me that Tonya Harding was not sufficiently contrite in public regarding her husband’s involvement in the attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan. Harding was quick to assert her innocence, but she never seemed all that mortified that someone was assaulted on her behalf, and in this documentary twenty years after the infamous event, she still doesn’t. But she is plenty bitter, and while that’s no surprise coming from someone whose life… See more →

When the credits roll at the end of The Act of Killing, roughly a third of the crew is listed as “Anonymous.” These are presumably Indonesians who have gone nameless for fear of retribution by a government, new to democracy, which perceives their participation in the film as an act of defiance. For the same reason, virtually no one who is not closely aligned with the government is interviewed in the film. The voice of… See more →

It’s hard to pin down the horror/sci-fi alchemy that makes Alien work so well, but probably more than anything else, its landmark production design is indispensable, drawing the viewer helplessly into its lived-in world, making the film’s claustrophobic dread palpable.

Carrie is one of the better Stephen King adaptations, thanks largely to Sissy Spacek’s fragile performance and its memorably masterful climax. Still, I always feel like the first hour is mostly just something to sit through while waiting for the big moment.

It’s hard not to be inspired by Wayne White’s restless creative spirit and whimsical, hand-crafted artworks across an array of media, and his cheerfully acerbic raconteur skills make the story of his journey as an artist that much more entertaining.

The Lego Movie is probably the best unabashed, 100-minute toy commercial anyone is ever likely to see. It certainly helps that the toy on offer has a long history of superior quality, and that the imagination- and creativity-focused brand values the film is designed to bolster are essentially unassailable. But it still could have been a disaster in the wrong hands, especially given the cloying, self-acknowledged cliché at the center of it: You are special.… See more →

Elena is a character study of an aging housewife who is frustrated by her wealthy husband’s refusal to offer financial assistance to her struggling son (from a previous marriage) and his family. It’s hard to tell how much one’s appreciation of the film is contingent upon their understanding of the class divide in post-Soviet Russia (mine is admittedly limited). Every plodding, beautifully shot moment of its excessive runtime is an overt examination of one or… See more →

A pompous high school literature teacher, Germain, encourages the troubling voyeurism of a promising (and manipulative) student, Claude, intending to help Claude improve his writing. But as Claude’s story becomes increasingly invasive into the real lives of his characters, Germain’s motives as an instructor come into question. Within that premise, In the House is an exploration of the audience’s role as a participant in art, and in particular the audience’s complicity in the sins of… See more →

An inventive and well-constructed mystery thriller that consistently intrigues without ever veering too far into pulp. A few too many answers pile up at the end for the resolution to be completely satisfying, but overall, I really enjoyed the ride.

If you’ve seen Johnny Knoxville’s hilarious Irving Zisman schtick in the Jackass movies, you know what to expect from Bad Grandpa, and it delivers. But trying to use an actual story to string together its collection of pranks and gags disrupts the pace and dilutes the comedy. The absence of character development was never a problem for the Jackass series before, so I’m not sure why they decided to try it here. The closing credits… See more →

There’s a strange narrative conflict at the heart of 12 O’Clock Boys. On one hand, the broader story of Baltimore’s brand of impoverished urban escapism through reckless dirt bike riding probably could have been told well enough in a short film. The local news clips and interviews with riders get pretty repetitive after awhile. On the other hand, following its charismatic protagonist, Pug, through three of his formative years (ages 12–15) offers a valuable glimpse… See more →

A wonderfully atmospheric, somewhat Lynchian portrait of emotional deterioration, with no small amount of affection for giallo films and the analog audio era. Excellent score by James Cargill and the late Trish Keenan of Broadcast.

I was 22 before I finally saw The Godfather. I previously had no interest in mob movies, mainly because of what I knew about Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas, whose maniacal extortionist with an intolerable sense of entitlement I took to be the genre’s dominant archetype. While it turned out that wasn’t entirely off-base, I was pleased to find many Mafia stories richer than I expected.

Fifteen years later, The Wolf of Wall… See more →

In Her, the central romance between Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and his artificially intelligent operating system Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) is developed almost entirely through conversation, since Samantha doesn’t have a physical presence. As a result, virtually everything either character thinks or feels is plainly stated aloud, giving viewers little to assess for themselves. The film is its own CliffsNotes. And while it touches on various difficulties inevitable to a relationship between a metaphysically boundless AI and… See more →

Computer Chess is a paradox. It appears to be a (successful) attempt to be as dry and impenetrably arcane as its subject can be, even for people who might be interested in that subject. In theory, it’s a compelling experiment, but its very definition requires that it offer no rewards, and for the most part, it meets that requirement.

Any film that sets out to play a bunch of Big Star music and talk to people in the know about how it was made and why it’s great can’t really go wrong, and this one doesn’t. But while the early acts offer engaging coverage of the birth of Memphis’s legendary Ardent Studios, Big Star’s formation, and the great records that followed, what comes after is a bit murky. There is much hypothesizing about why… See more →

This was good for a few chuckles, but I expected more from the collective comedic pedigree involved. There are plenty of gags reminiscent of other John Landis classics like The Blues Brothers and Three Amigos, but Trading Places just doesn’t have the same heart. That said, as a Philadelphia area native, I did appreciate the many location shots as a great snapshot of the city in 1983.

McConaughey is excellent, but the redemption story is pretty by-the-numbers, and is ultimately overpowered by a rather shrill anti-FDA polemic.

Somehow I never noticed the US foreign policy allegory happening here.

Baroness: “Back Where I Belong”

The transition between “Back Where I Belong” and “Sea Lungs” sounds kind of like a dystopian sci-fi re-imagining of Van Halen’s “1984.”

Michael Jackson: Bad (25th Anniversary)

I hope this means we can look forward to a 25th anniversary edition of Weird Al Yankovic’s Even Worse next year.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

Maybe because Yanqui U.X.O. didn’t really do it for me, I never really pined for… See more →

Swans and Chelsea Wolfe made my two favorite records from last year, and now I’m heading out to see them play a show together.

First time I’ve been frisked at a music venue in NYC. Makes me kinda homesick for Philly.

You know, I bet female musicians just love it when their male fans shout marriage proposals at them onstage.

Loosely based on a true story, The Sapphires is a musical comedy which follows a group of singing Aboriginal Australian women on their 1968 rise to fame. Destined to languish in racially marginalized obscurity in their homeland, the group’s fortunes turn when they’re discovered by alcoholic has-been Dave Lovelace (Chris O’Dowd), who shifts their focus from country/western to soul and lands them a successful audition to perform for the troops in Vietnam.

Based on that… See more →

To intellectually understand what Colin Stetson does, or to see or hear a recording, won’t prepare you for his incredible live performance.

Just got tickets for pretty much the best possible seats to see @lowtheband at @NyseC in March.

Oh, just seeing my favorite band (@lowtheband) with my favorite person (@ChamberMonster). No big deal.

Great room. Great sound. Great set list. Great band. My eighth @lowtheband show in eleven years was the best one yet.

Another excellent @wussymusic show last night. So nice to see great music performed with such honest joy.

A noir as classic as they come. Drink every time Fred MacMurray strikes a match with his thumbnail.

Of all of last year’s films I didn’t get to see during their initial release, Compliance was among those I most lamented missing. Its premise was pure, ludicrous pulp – things spiral horribly out of control when a prank caller posing as a cop convinces a restaurant manager to detain and strip-search an employee – yet it was said to be more of an understated indie drama than a gimmicky Hollywood thriller, and the critics… See more →

During a recent discussion about karaoke, I confessed that one of my favorite songs to sing when it’s available (which is more often than you’d think) is “Too Drunk to Fuck” by the San Francisco Bay Area punk legends Dead Kennedys. Virtually no one is expecting to hear it, and it elicits precisely the sort of slack-jawed amusement and/or horror I like to see in a karaoke audience.

My friend Tyler, who was a Bay… See more →

I only saw 32 new movies in 2012, and while plenty were good, none of them particularly blew my mind. With a few exceptions, I steered clear of big budget studio fare and stuck mostly to documentaries and unassuming indies. There were several critical darlings of different shapes and sizes that probably would have made my year-end list if I had gotten around to seeing them, but I didn’t. From what I did see, I… See more →

When it appeared in 2007, Paranormal Activity was arguably the best entry in the “found footage” horror sub-genre since that category was kickstarted by the immense success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999. A sort of Blair Witch for the YouTube era, Paranormal Activity capitalized on social media’s self-surveillance culture and applied it to things that go bump in the night, telling the story of a young couple who decided to investigate their home’s… See more →

Horror director Ti West is known for employing a persistent, slow-burning tension in his films, which I admire in principle, but in practice it hasn’t always worked out. His last feature, House of the Devil, was defined by tension built around what we knew and the protagonist didn’t: her babysitting clients were extremely unsavory characters. How it would end was unclear, but there was no question that she would be subjected to a harrowing ordeal… See more →

There is little I enjoy quite as much as spending an entire afternoon in a movie theater, so I often lament the fact that I missed out on the heyday of the double feature. Of course, in this day and age, I’m able to curate my own double (or triple, or quadruple) features in the privacy of my own home, which I do often. I might watch a string of sequels, a pair of films… See more →

I recently saw the band Swans live for the second time. They were promoting a stellar new album (The Seer) which essentially encompasses all of the varied and challenging music that bandleader Michael Gira has made under a few different monikers over the last thirty years. In the two years since I saw them last, I had gotten to know their oeuvre better, and coming to this show with a more educated ear paid off.… See more →

To begin with, I have no small amount of reverence for Roger Corman. Untold hours of my youth were spent in front of a 13″ television that screened the most outrageous low-budget horror movies my local video store had to offer. Aside from the cheap thrills provided, there was something inspiring about their scrappy production values: a sense that limited resources and skills need not obstruct one’s dreams, and that a creative endeavor’s ostensible shortcomings… See more →

For a 6:30 p.m. show with five bands on the bill and no food for sale, you might want to reconsider your “NO RE-ENTRY” policy.

Thrill Jockey anniversary show last night was the most eclectic I’ve seen in ages. I loved Future Islands fans being made to endure Liturgy.

While I’m still probably not going to be a fan, holy crap does that Future Islands singer guy own the stage.

I didn’t mention it in my recent analysis of my first year using Rdio, but one of the many reasons I’m reluctant to make a subscription service my exclusive musical gateway is the ephemerality of online content and services. For that same reason, my writing that has appeared recently in a few other places online has been reposted on this site, and I’ve decided to do the same with the various artist, album, and song… See more →

I’ve been following Mike Birbiglia’s work for a few years now, which means I’ve heard this story several times before. Sleepwalk With Me had its origins in his stand-up act, which morphed into a one-man show, which became a book, which has now been adapted into a film. It’s a good story deserving of all these media, but it is still best told onstage with a microphone.

Birbiglia is a gifted storyteller, heartfelt and free… See more →

Apropos of nothing, I’ve decided to watch all of Disney’s theatrical animated features in order of release date. Since Wreck-It Ralph’s release in November will bring the grand total up to fifty-two, it will take me exactly one year to watch them all if I do one film per week.

The marathon began tonight with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a film of such tremendous historical significance that it’s almost impossible to… See more →

Tonight, my glasses spent about twenty seconds on the floor of a crowded and rowdy Bowery Ballroom. Then they were returned to me, unharmed.

Scowling crust punk girl who just walked past the line for the Wussy show: “Is Cher playing tonight?”