If nothing else, The Connection looks gorgeous—set in Marseille in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and shot on 35mm, it’s a movie that revels in its time and place, with Laurent Tangy’s sun-dappled cinematography rolling in dusky yellows, browns, and blues. And when those visuals are paired up with a few select songs from […]
Erik Henriksen
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Too Old For This
The Gunman: Where BAM! and KA-POW! Meet the AARP
The Baby Boomers—previously known as the cohort that inherited a pretty sweet setup from the Greatest Generation, and currently known as the cohort that somehow managed to mess everything up just in time for the Gen Xers and millennials—are getting old. And there are a lot of them. In 1950, Americans over the age of […]
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Drum and Drummer
Whiplash: When drumming is LIFE AND DEATH
Whiplash is intense. Way more intense than one would expect, given that it’s about a kid learning how to play the drums. That kid is Andrew (Miles Teller), and he’s studying at a New York music conservatory that Fletcher (J.K. Simmons, who won an Oscar last week for this best supporting role) rules like a […]
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Oil and Trouble
The Great Invisible: The feel-bad movie of the year!
An unflinching, up-close look at the devastating repercussions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, The Great Invisible travels from Alabama to Louisiana to Texas, tracking down oil rig workers, oyster shuckers, shrimpers, and crab pickers to document how life along the Gulf of Mexico changed after 200 million gallons of oil gushed into the gulf […]
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Knowing Where to Look
The movies to look forward to in 2015
It’s easy to see why film is no longer paramount in the cultural conversation: For those too lazy to look past the multiplex, Hollywood is little more than a franchise factory. That dive in creativity is highlighted by the original, outstanding work on television—and in what’s hardly a coincidence, TV has proven far more accepting […]
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Sex, Drugs, and Rocks
Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: Now with 100 percent more Reese Witherspoon!
“The last thing we need is a bunch of ill-prepared people who aren’t thinking clearly and are trying to find themselves,” huffed Donna Saufley, a former board member of the Pacific Crest Trail Association, to the New York Times in 2013. She was talking to Christopher Solomon, whose story “The Call of the Wild on […]
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Security Breach
The NSA really doesn’t want you to see Citizenfour
“I have only one fear in doing all of this,” Edward Snowden told journalist Glenn Greenwald in a hotel room in Hong Kong in June of 2013. “That people will see these documents and shrug, that they’ll say, ‘We assumed this was happening and don’t care.’ The only thing I’m worried about is that I’ll […]
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European Vacation
Force Majeure: Not-so-fun for the whole family!
Life is pain, even in the gorgeous French Alps. What starts as a perfect family vacation—one spent skiing pristine mountains, chatting in restaurants, laughing with friends—goes hideously awry in Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund’s darkly hilarious and/or darkly horrifying tale of a marriage on the rocks. Or maybe that should be “on the slopes”? I don’t […]
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Hooray for Rocco!
The Drop features a puppy named Rocco! He’s great!
What’s better than dogs? Nothing! Dogs are the greatest creatures that have ever or will exist on this planet. All movies should feature dogs—or, barring multiple dogs, at least one dog. Good news! In The Drop, there’s a dog named Rocco! He’s a puppy pit bull, and, he’s great! Sure, there’s other stuff that’s great […]
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Encounters at the End of the World
Director Aaron Katz on Iceland, weirdness, and Land Ho!
Colin (Paul Eenhoorn) doesn’t really have a say in the matter. When he arrives at the Kentucky home of Mitch (Earl Lynn Nelson), his former brother-in-law and a recently retired doctor, the reserved Colin expects to have dinner, catch up, and maybe talk about how he’s doing after the death of his wife, or how […]