Fifty Shades of Grey Movie to Film Scenes in Downtown Miami

Hide yo’ housewives, hide yo’ kids. Miami is set to become a center of smutty, mediocre soft porn when the Fifty Shades of Grey movie begins filming right in the middle of downtown. According to the West Australian, the Fifty Shades production crew has made a last-minute change to its…

Downton Abbey Is Just a Telenovela with British Accents (Spoilers)

For Downton Abbey fans, Miami’s a pretty lonely place. In other parts of the country, obsessed superfans have spent months actively searching for (or actively avoiding) spoilers about the fourth season, beginning this Sunday. They’ve been chatting non-stop about the death of Matthew, speculating about the future of Sybil’s son,…

The 2013 Village Voice Film Poll

In 2013 there were a thousand bright lights and no strong center — even with Gravity, which ranked No. 8 on our tally of almost 100 critics’ bests. The results in this year’s Village Voice Film Poll, like the decisions arrived at by critics’ circles around the country, suggest that…

A Thrilling Look at Barbara Stanwyck’s Rise

When Peter Guralnick released Last Train to Memphis, the first half of his superb two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, some people must have wondered, Who needs two books to tell the story of Elvis? They may as well have grumbled, “Two whole books about America?” Some lives, some careers, push…

Marilyn Manson Stars as a Teen in Wacky Wrong Cop

When he was 13, Marilyn Manson — then just Christian schoolkid Brian Warner of Canton, Ohio — would hide out in the basement while his grandfather masturbated to bestiality porn. Then he’d go upstairs and cheer himself up by reading Mad magazine. The self-dubbed God of Fuck — who later…

Justin Bieber’s Believe Teaches Girls to Cry for Biebs

In Never Say Never, the original Bieber biopic, we met the young pop star as a virtuoso, a kid who played every instrument, sang like an angel, and had hair that must have required some sort of deal with the devil. It reassured both skeptic chaperones and devoted fans that…

The Village Voice Film Poll: 2013’s Winners and Losers

In 2013 there were a thousand bright lights and no strong center — even with Gravity, which ranked No. 8 on our tally of almost 100 critics’ bests. The results in this year’s Village Voice Film Poll, like the decisions arrived at by critics’ circles around the country, suggest that…

Her Star Joaquin Phoenix: He’s (Still) Still Here

In Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi romance, Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a divorcee who rebounds by falling in love with his smartphone. On a recent Wednesday, however, he’s a delinquent boyfriend, leaving his iPad abandoned on a chair in a Lebanese restaurant as he bounces off to the parking lot for…

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Is a Clown’s Stab at a Masterpiece

In the 20 years since Reality Bites, his directorial debut, Ben Stiller has metastasized from sketch comedy lunatic to Generation X darling to blockbuster king. Among the funnymen, most of whom have calcified into cliques (yawn, Anchorman 2), he’s the last of the triple-threat writer-director-stars and the only one who…

Michel Gondry on Noam Chomsky and a Brainy New Doc

Michel Gondry likes video stores. He is, after all, the director of the ultimate VHS sonnet, Be Kind Rewind, in which Jack Black and Mos Def re-create classics like Ghostbusters from plastic bags and tinsel. (Sad about the death of Blockbuster? Give it a watch.) One night, Gondry was browsing…