On sexiness: Are you goddamn kidding me?
I meant to respond to Steven ING a long time ago; unfortunately, I'm a slovenly mess with zero personal accountability. My unvarying response to life’s smallest challenges is to gasp, start...
Category: Arts & Literature
Primavera festival: transported by sound
What is it that Jarvis Cocker sang in that Pulp song? Oh yeah. Tugging on strands of blissed-out escapism, Cocker links rave’s field-trip culture to hanging around aimlessly on grass, neatly...
“Presumed Guilty” at the 2010 Human Rights Watch festival
“Presumed Guilty” is the title of this year’s closing night doc at the 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, a co-presentation of Human Rights Watch and The Film Society of Lincoln Center that...
Disinterment on the Killing Fields: “Enemies of the People” at the 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Having taken home the 2010 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize earlier this year, “Enemies of the People,” Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath’s subtle look inside the atrocities of...
“Four Lions”: terrorism and uncomfortable laughter
What exactly is a “home grown terrorist?” Young Muslims cloned in specially controlled vats hidden in secret greenhouses under guard day and night from elite seven-foot tall Al Qaeda warriors?...
Centurion: the perils of empire make for good cinema
Early on in Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian” the Emperor Hadrian, now 60, muses, “This morning it occurred to me for the first time that my body, my faithful companion and friend,...
The Killer Inside Me stands out at Tribeca Film Fest
The Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro’s annual glam-fest on the Hudson, is glitzy and obnoxious and very L.A. – which is exactly why I enjoy covering it. It’s like traveling to the West...
M.I.A.’s “Born Free”: A Statement We Need To Hear
In the nine-minute video for “Born Free,” a song on M.I.A.’s upcoming album, riot police storm an apartment building and round up all the redheaded males. During the raid, the police burst in...
A Nightmare On Elm Street: Not Much of an Update
Halfway into the new remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, the young heroine disrobes and steps into a hot bath. As she peels off her robe, some men at the screening I'm sitting in holler, "Yeah!...
“Budrus”: capturing minds without heart
“Budrus,” the title of Julia Bacha’s feature documentary in competition at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in NYC, presented in conjunction with the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, refers to...