‘Chameleon Street’ Pushes the Limits of Independent Cinema
Chameleon Street has a finger on the throbbing pulse of shifting cultures that see youth through punk, new wave, and hip-hop.
comedy
‘Frasier’ Is Back, But Are We Still Listening?
America is a more polarized political and social landscape since the original Frasier aired. Since it was never a socially conscious comedy like many of today’s sitcoms, who is this reboot for?
Psychological Thriller ‘Saltburn’ Is a Feast for Depraved Eyes
To describe Saltburn as a sexed-up The Talented Mr. Ripley for millennials would be to reduce this aesthetically and symbolically complex film to a two-bit aphorism, but it’s a good start.
The Queer World of Gregg Araki’s Films
Campy, surreal, and even “trauma”-inducing, the queer world of Gregg Araki’s smart, challenging, and colorfully eccentric films seduce.
Pablo Larraín’s ‘El Conde’ Dilutes the Real Horror of Pinochet
Pablo Larraín’s fascist vampire analogy El Conde somehow trivializes the Pinochet monstrosity at its core.
Fluid Dynamics: Sexual Displacement in Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’
Billy Wilder’s most savage of American comedies, The Apartment, skewers corporate culture and patriarchal structures while challenging viewers to read its spills and overflows as more than just accidents.
Camp and the Hyperreal Telenovela in Almodóvar’s ‘All About My Mother’
In All About My Mother, Pedro Almodóvar leverages hyperreality through a camp lens to narrate a story that is as rich in theatricality as it is in the nuanced emotionality of the dream.
Comedy Series ‘The Afterparty’ Is Among the Last of Its Kind
The second season of Apple TV’s funny, inventive, and self-indulgent comedy whodunnit The Afterparty is utterly unnecessary in the best way.
Lenny Bruce vs. Lenny Bruce: The Real and the Imagined
There are two Lenny Bruces: 1. the real-life subject of thoughtful documentaries and biographies, and 2. the TV/movie hip mentor and accidental deity.
French Pop Cinema of the 1960s Brings Tintin to Life Twice Over
Tintin is one of the secret engines of 20th Century pop culture in Europe and Hollywood, as shown in these James Bond-like movies for the elementary school crowd.
Communitas and Comfort Television
Through the glow of comfort television, we experience communitas – that feeling of “the lost heaven” of the collective – and, for a time, we are relieved of our existential alienation.
Jaboukie Young-White Shows Off Music Chops on Debut
Jaboukie Young-White’s clever wordplay, creative use of metaphor, and engaging storytelling prove he’s adept at applying his perceptive talents to music.