Long before Ben Stiller became a key figure in the screen-comedy boom of the 1990s, a top-notch director, an Emmy-winning TV producer, and the man who convinced Tom Cruise to yell “Take a step back and literally fuck your own face” while wearing a fat-suit, he was Jerry and Anne’s …
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These days, there are so many reasons to wake up in the middle of the night, bathed in your own cold sweat: the erosion of basic civil liberties, the rising tide of authoritarian rule (and lack of a rapid-response political resistance), the increasing number of goon squads conspicuously showing up …
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No one goes to a Yorgos Lanthimos movie to see something quote-unquote “normal.” Discerning viewers flock to the Greek filmmaker’s parables about family dynamics and power struggles to marinate in his deadpan humor, his aloof and somewhat anthropological look at human behavior, and the sight of Emma Stone inevitably doing …
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In 1981, Bruce Springsteen found himself at a crossroads. He’d just finished his tour for The River, which had brought his marathon-length, rock & roll-revivalist shows to a record number of audiences. The E Street Band was hitting on all cylinders. “Hungry Heart” was his first single to crack the …
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There has probably never been, and almost assuredly never will be, someone who’s watched Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’ transcendent 1987 film about an angel who watches over lonely citydwellers and lost souls, yearning to give up the divine in order to be human, and said: “This movie really needed …
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The premise is simple enough: A man finds his family trip interrupted when his car breaks down. A mechanic thinks this stranger in town was the same person who tortured him for years in prison. He abducts the traveler, takes him to the desert, and digs a grave. Then a …
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Scan the wall of Sardi’s, the restaurant and bar in midtown Manhattan that’s served as the watering hole for Broadway’s biggest names over the decades, and you’ll find caricatures of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II sitting side by side. The men are considered the most successful songwriting duo in …
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Many gambling addicts will tell you that it’s not the opportunity of winning a fortune that keeps them chronically hitting for another card, rolling another pair of dice, watching another little ball go round and round until it stops on the red or the black. It’s the thrill of losing …
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There have been odder page-to-stage, stage-to-screen, screen-to-song-and-dance-extravaganza case studies than Kiss of the Spider Woman, which began life as Argentine writer Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel about sex, fantasy, and betrayal in prison. Several theatrical productions were mounted before filmmaker Hector Babenco turned the story into an Oscar-winning film starring Raul …
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Linda (Rose Byrne) is having a hard time. Wait, that’s not quite selling it enough. “A hard time” suggests this beleaguered, bewildered mother needs to overcome an obstacle or two. What Linda is dealing with is an onslaught of soul-crushing strife. Her daughter (Delany Quinn) is overly anxious, extremely high-strung, …
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