Toward the end of the excellent new documentary, Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of the Dana Carvey Show, Dana Carvey describes the final installment of a bit that ran throughout his infamously short-lived 1990s sketch series. In “Stupid Pranksters,” Carvey and Steve Carell, then an unknown comic…
It’s November! Which means that we’ve almost survived this year and I think that calls for a little celebration. How should we celebrate? Probably with lots of liquor. It’s been a tough one, but also TV! Nov. 2: Young Sheldon, CBS And on the seventh day, God planted the idea…
On Sept. 11, 2001, renowned primatologist and environmental advocate Jane Goodall was in New York on business. She had planned to catch a flight out to visit a high school to give a talk on how we can find a reason to hope. That didn’t happen, of course. She stayed…
When same-sex marriage became legal in Finland this past March, the government celebrated by releasing an official emjoi — a leather-clad man with a drooping mustache and a police-style cap emblazoned with the word “Tom.” No explanation was necessary, for “Tom” was clearly a nod to Tom of Finland —…
For all his reputation as a capital-A Auteur, Todd Haynes has always demonstrated impressive stylistic versatility. The Sirkian pastiche of Far from Heaven is a far cry from the lo-fi expressionism of Poison, and the music video wonderland of Velvet Goldmine has relatively little in common with the fractured minimalism…
Imagine a remake of Cape Fear shot like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, with Max Cady recast as a child, and you’ll have some idea of the strangeness of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer. It was one of the most divisive titles at this year’s Cannes festival, thanks…
Like most of the better Marvel efforts, Thor: Ragnarok feels like the work of a unique sensibility instead of a huddle of brand managers. While the studio’s films demonstrated plenty of comic flair right from the start of its shared-universe experiment, with 2008’s Iron Man, recent efforts have veered too…
When I first saw Brett Morgen’s 2002 documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, I was shocked that the film somehow matched the rollicking, mercurial energy of its subject, producer Robert Evans. Morgen reimagined the use of archival footage and voiceover, and the style he pioneered has now been mimicked…
This piece has spoilers for the first six episodes of the second season of Stranger Things. Look, I like the show, but the title is a lie. Seemingly inspired by that one line from Hamlet that I kept hearing in presentations the time I reported on a UFO convention, the…
From a documentary about Native American rock stars to a Churchill biopic, these are the films you won’t want to miss at FLIFF.
Last year, just days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone told a reporter that the next season of their show wouldn’t take aim at Trump, because “satire has become reality.” After 20 years of skewering public figures from Steve Jobs…
Joan Didion has set an impossible standard for any documentarian who would want to cover her life. She’s essentially already done it herself, brilliantly, in her essays, novels and films. Still, Didion’s nephew, actor/director Griffin Dunne, takes a shot with his new Netflix film Joan Didion: The Center Will Not…
Maybe it’s encouraging, in a way, that an America in crisis struggles so mightily to make crowd-pleasing war movies. Whatever their politics, no studio exec today would let a wide-release desert-war drama come right out and say what even the GOP increasingly admits: that Iraq was a mistake, that Afghanistan has…
The day you first hear Chavela Vargas is the best day you’ll have that year. A majestic and inimitable performer, and a lesbian trailblazer of gender nonconformity, the Mexican chanteuse stripped ranchera music to its wounded heart, singing lovesick, masculine cowboy songs with a voice that holds hurting like liquor…
The Miami Jewish Film Festival and Miami Beach Cinematheque are bringing back the series Masters of Jewish Cinema with a bang this year by celebrating Streisand the whole month. The retrospective, titled Simply Streisand, will provide a glimpse into the film career of the immensely talented artist.
This fall, mainstream films are subverting expectations all over the place. Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! proved too much for some audiences looking for a moody drama who were then shocked by gory, allegorical narrative. Blade Runner 2049 sloughed off most of its predecessor’s lower-brow populist action for a somber tone and…
The last few months have seen some welcome innovation in the cry-along subgenre of dramas about finding the will to keep living after bodily catastrophe. First, in the notably sincere and unsensational Stronger, director David Gordon Green and his crew strove to strip away as much of such films’ usual…
My favorite biopics — those that tell any portion of a real person’s story faithfully — are those that borrow from other genres. Pablo Larrain’s Jackie possesses the kinetic punch of a horror film. Mario Van Peebles’ Baadasssss! is a sharp comedy. And Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvy is a cutting…
New Yorkers will immediately recognize the opening shots of One of Us, the new documentary from Jesus Camp filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady: ultra-Orthodox Jewish families roaming the big city, the women and girls in skirts and tights, the men and boys in long black coats and hats, looking…
Over the phone from his Los Angeles office, David Lynch tells me, “It was all Harry Dean. I’d do anything for Harry Dean.” The visionary director is referring to taking on an acting role in John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut, Lucky, which stars Harry Dean Stanton, and is largely based…
“This year we hunt big game. This year you get your first kill.” So says seasoned hunter Cal (Matt Bomer) to his teenage son David (Josh Wiggins), who’s arrived in rural Montana for his annual visit, and even those going in unfamiliar with the premise of Alex and Andrew Smith’s…
At this one-night-only event, watch short films produced by Borscht Corporation, mingle with local filmmakers, and bid on auctioned artworks for less than the price of a movie ticket and popcorn.
