‘Peter Hujar’s Day’ Finds and Makes Meaning in the Mundane
Ben Whishaw achieves something close to dialectical mesmerism in Peter Hujar’s Day; his performance is simultaneously monumental and mundane.
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Bob Dylan Rings in His Ears
Music theorist Steven Rings helps readers understand Bob Dylan the performer, not the lyricist or songwriter, in a welcome and indispensable addition to Dylan scholarship.
‘Things in Nature Merely Grow’ Tackles Death Differently
Yiyun Li’s beautiful and complex autobiography Things in Nature Merely Grow is not about death or loss; it is about who we become when we lose.
‘It Was Just an Accident’ Hides Life’s Extremes in Plain Sight
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning revenge thriller, It Was Just an Accident, slices into memory and the desire for revenge with a double-edged knife.
One Battle After Another’s Appealing Radical Heart
One Battle After Another‘s sympathetic portrayals of left-wing radicalized groups seems an impossible-to-resist target of the pearl-clutching, but it’s been less of a lightning rod than expected on that front.
Twinless’ Takes a Taste of Life’s Toxic Cocktail
James Sweeney’s Twinless argues that the loneliness of contemporary, late-stage capitalism life is perpetuated by the very things that attempt to remedy it.
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Check Out ‘The Librarians’ Before It’s Banned
The Librarians is a vital David and Goliath documentary of the fight against book banning, a harbinger of fascism, in America.
‘Everything Is Now’ Digs Into NYC’s Avant-Garde Ferment
Everything Is Now expertly demonstrates how NYC’s varied avant-garde subcultures were birthed in cold-water lofts, coffeehouses, and tiny storefront galleries and theaters.
‘Los Golfos’ Returns from Franco-Censored Purgatory
Carlos Saura’s once censored Los Golfos exists in a purgatory between the relatively plot-less freedom of some neorealist films and the excesses of delinquent youth melodrama.
‘Separation of Church and Hate’ Reclaims the Good Book
Comedian John Fugelsang organized The Separation of Church and Hate as a reference guide to encourage conversation about the Good Book during our fraught cultural-political times.
‘Checkpoint Zoo’ Saves the Animals Two by Two
Documentary director Joshua Zeman’s time in true crime equipped him with an ability to craft dread and suspense, which goes a long way in Checkpoint Zoo.
‘The Martians’ Probes the First Time Americans Went Nuts for Aliens
David Baron’s pop history of the early Martian mania, The Martians, probes how deception, promoted by the fantasies of single-minded obsessives, predated Silicon Valley.