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Highlights from the 2019 Global Citizen Festival

The 2019 Global Citizen Festival featured Queen + Adam Lambert, Alicia Keys, Pharrell Williams, and more for an event that drew thousands of attendees who won tickets through social activism.
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Film

'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood' May Be Tarantino's Best, Most Assured Film

Tarantino's latest, Once Upon a Time.. in Hollywood, is a breezy, top-down-on-the-convertible kind of film that wows you with its surprising sweetness before punching you with a bloody fist.

Film

'The Revenant' Finds Beauty in the Brutality of Survival

With The Revenant, Alejandro González Iñárritu weaves a story both simple and complex, brutal and beautiful, and with a focused and impressive visual aesthetic.

Film

Scorsese vs. Scorsese: Tales of Two Dreamers

The Wolf of Wall Street celebrates deception, whereas Hugo upholds the search for truth. Which worldview is Scorsese's?

Film

Sex & Drugs & Stocks 'n' Blow

The Wolf of Wall Street becomes a frightening morality play wherein the morals worth celebrating or demonizing depend entirely upon the viewer.

Film

The Month In Pop Entertainment: November 2013

Feast on a cornucopia of entertainment options this month.

Film

The Great Gatsby Re-Incarnated a la Don Draper and Barack Obama

It’s human nature to Gatsby-ize others, whether it’s for the pleasures of unsatisfied curiosity, or slander, or just plain sport.

Reviews

'The Great Gatsby': Excess and Then Some

This Jazz Age is presented in the film as so many brightly colored, manic fantasies, in frantic, crowded dance scenes, in speedy, deliriously unconvincing driving scenes, and even conventionally awkward, filtered-light sex scenes.

Film

Violence Unchained

There’s a fine line between showing violence and fetishizing it. Have we crossed it?

Reviews

Secrets and Lies: 'J. Edgar' Explores the Duality of Hoover and the FBI

Revealing the nature of secrets, the power they—and those who keep them—generate, and the tragedy of good intentions gone horribly awry, whether in public or private, makes J. Edgar a powerful film.

Reviews

The Basketball Diaries

Another stepping stone in DiCaprio’s rise to superstardom, The Basketball Diaries details the alienation, abuse, and addiction of American punk Jim Carroll’s teenage years.

Film

The New Classics - The 30 Best Films of 2008

Unlike previous years, where classics came crawling out of the celluloid woodwork with regular reckless abandon, 2008 was more calm… and considered. That's not to say that choosing 30 top titles was hard. The difficulty in placing them in some manner of rank order suggests the actual depth of quality involved.

Film

Iconic - The Top 20 Male Performances of 2008

Like the gladiators of old, 2008 resembles a battle of formidable acting gods, especially when looking over the 20 choices presented below. Indeed, if anything, choosing a winner requires more of a leap of faith than any amount of critical skill - they all were that good.

Film

Tough and Tender - The Top 20 Female Performances of 2008

Twenty talented ladies, 20 performances worthy of multiple little gold men. Unfortunately, as in all years, someone has to come out on top. But after looking over this impressive list, picking the preeminent turn of 2008 seems almost impossible.

Reviews

Revolutionary Road

In Revolutionary Road, April is turned into the prize Frank wants to own and the puzzle he seeks to solve.

Reviews

Body of Lies

Body of Lies grants Ferris the usual moral rightness -- even as he's committing questionable acts, he means well.

Film

Talk, Talk, Talk: December 2008

Just like the end of an inspiring speech that may or may not succeed in making its point, these final four weeks before 2009 tend to define or defeat the entire awards season purpose.

Film

Talk, Talk, Talk: October 2008

What studio suit thought this was a good idea? With four months to schedule your high priced efforts, you instead unload almost 30 overpriced pictures on an unsuspecting movie audience.

Reviews

The 11th Hour

Debates over policy, resources, and money are and will be shaped by campaigns, images, and celebrities. The 11th Hour understands that, and makes its case accordingly.

Film

Shallow Graves

Martin Scorsese's hotly tipped Oscar fave, The Departed, plumbs the depths of the psychological and sociological motives of violence, loyalty, and duty.

Michael Patrick Brady
Film

The Pay Off: The Best Film of 2006

For many of the movies on PopMatters' 2006 list of the year's best films, it is clear that a heavy personal and professional stake was riding on the final product.

Reviews

Blood Diamond (2006)

The movie can't seem to get out of its own way, relying on melodramatic clichés to make complex political observations.

Reviews

The Departed (2006)

The Departed's understanding of identity is deeply rooted in place and culture -- South Boston, Irish Catholicism, masculine rituals.

Reviews

The Aviator (2004)

The Aviator portrays Hughes as a rebel and a genius, a dashing young man with ambition, hope, and nerve.

Cynthia Fuchs
Reviews

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Steven Spielberg's zippy new film is about the kind of 'truth' that might only be apprehended in its telling.

Cynthia Fuchs
Reviews

Don's Plum (1995)

And so the clichés begin.

Nikki Tranter
Film

Gangs of New York (2002)

Daniel Day-Lewis wears a tall stovepipe hat in Martin Scorsese's long-awaited Gangs of New York.

Cynthia Fuchs

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