What were you like when you were 18 years old, high on the feeling that your life was a blank canvas spread out in front of you, and you could throw whatever paint splatters you wanted on it? Maybe, like Elliott (Maisy Stella), the hero of My Old Ass, you …
Read More »'Daughters' Captures a Father-Daughter Dance in Prison. There Will Be Tears
At a TED talk in 2012, Angela Patton, the CEO of the nonprofit organization Girls for Change, told a story. She was running a summer immersion program in Richmond, Virginia, called Camp Diva. Patton asked the dozen or so attendees if there was something the camp could do to foster …
Read More »'Good One' Is Pure Brooklyn Sad-Dad Catnip — and a Great Movie
There may not be a movie that has more BDE (Brooklyn Dad Energy) than Good One — you’d have to go to closing time at a Park Slope bar with nothing but The National on the jukebox to find a more concentrated dose of paternal moodiness than writer-director India Donaldson’s …
Read More »'War Game' Is the Scariest Documentary You'll See This Year
The man standing at the podium has the steady, stentorian voice of an authority figure, someone who issues orders and expects them to be heeded without question, and the look of a zealot in his eyes. “My fellow Americans,” he intones, betraying a slightly Southern lilt gilded by fire and …
Read More »'Kneecap' Gives Belfast's Controversial Rap Trio Their Own '8 Mile'
They’re young, handsome, angry, and they want to get drunk and get laid and get high. Very, very high. Also, these gentlemen would love to have the indigenous vernacular of Ireland treated with the respect it deserves. They are Kneecap, a hip-hop trio from Belfast made of up of MCs …
Read More »'Didi' Captures the Pain, Confusion and Adrenaline Rush of Being 13 All Too Well
All coming-of-age movies essentially hit the same beats: the getting of wisdom, the loss of innocence, the passage from childhood to some hard-won form of adulthood. Only the names, regions, eras and cultures change. Trace a through line from The 400 Blows to Lady Bird, however, and you’ll notice the …
Read More »'Sing Sing' Stages a Play in Prison — and Makes a Case for Healing Power of Art
You do not meet John Whitfield, known to friends and enemies alike by his nickname Divine G, as a person convicted of a crime. You are introduced to him onstage as a performer, bringing a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream to a close as an audience of fellow incarcerated …
Read More »'Thelma' Introduces the World to June Squibb, Action Hero!
When you get to be an actor of a certain age, you have the option of a lucrative career pivot into action movies. Just ask Liam Neeson, or Denzel Washington, or any of the other A-listers who’ve reinvented themselves as late-act ass-kickers. We’ll confess that we did not have June …
Read More »'Gasoline Rainbow' Is a Postcard From Teenage Wasteland, USA
Think back to your teenage years, and a few incidents, days, dates, etc., spring immediately to mind. Most of what comes flooding back probably are the sensations that colored that time of your life — the feelings you had while pissing away whole afternoons with friends, not knowing what late …
Read More »'I Saw the TV Glow' Is About to Become Gen-Z's Favorite Cult Movie
Have you ever loved a TV show? Like, really loved it, to the point where your identity became wrapped up in it, where you engaged in life-or-death debates over characters and story arcs, strongest seasons and best episodes? Where the minutiae and the mythology of it became something between a …
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