Last night, on Lifetime’s season premier of Project Runway All Stars, Patricia Michael’s A-line dress with “torpedo darts” sent the New Mexican designer packing. As the finalists’ first challenge, the designers were split right down the middle with the fellas busting out tasteful albeit edgy designs for Manhattan’s downtown girl,…
You can’t live in New York for more than ten days without meeting some truly dreadful people: couples who fret about having to choose between buying a summer home and having a second child, even as you’re struggling to pay your monthly rent; large groups of people getting together for…
Jake Gyllenhaal is accustomed to exhaustion. During his research for the LAPD drama End of Watch, he spent five months patrolling the streets with real-life police officers until 7 a.m. It was good preparation for his new movie Nightcrawler, a blistering portrait of a morally corrupt crime-scene videographer who works…
Jazz isn’t dead. Miraculously, there’s always a small but steady stream of young people who continue to fall in love with this most dazzling and elusive American genre, spending hours, days, and months running ribbons of scales and memorizing Charlie Parker solos in the hopes that some of the alto…
Jake Gyllenhaal, not a particularly bulky guy to begin with, dropped 20 pounds or so to play a Los Angeles misfit who finds his calling as a freelance crime videographer in Dan Gilroy’s nervy thriller Nightcrawler. Even when Robert De Niro does it, weight change isn’t acting — it’s the…
Alexandre Aja’s Horns is the rare YA-ish romance that doesn’t make like a guidance counselor and force the characters to shake hands and forgive. It’s a biblically tinged, eye-for-an-eye vengeance thriller about an emo boyfriend named Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) whose childhood sweetheart Merrin (Juno Temple) has been murdered underneath the…
Before there was a Birdman, there was a Batman — several, in fact — though the best was played by Michael Keaton in the two Tim Burton films in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Since then, Christian Bale’s somber strutting and muttering, as seen in Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies,…
This essay contains a spoiler or two for John Wick. There’s too much violence in movies today — too much of the wrong kind, though if you asked me what the “right” kind is, I would only be able to tell you that I know it when I see it…
Keanu Reeves in John WickOn this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, we welcome Village Voice contributor and filmmaker Zachary Wigon, who tells us about his paranoid thriller The Heart Machine (iTunes). See also: Read our John Wick movie review…
Forget the umbrella and grab a chainsaw: We’re getting closer to the dream. SyFy announced this week that Sharknado 3, the third installment to the ridiculous fish gore flick, will hit our TVs in 2015 — and this time, it’s set closer to our South Florida shores. “Starting in Washington,…
Though he is working with drama on a very pure level in his feature debut, filmmaker Peter Sattler admits there are some surreal aspects to his movie, Camp X-Ray. “It had a very universal message of just finding commonality in a stranger that transcends language and cultural barriers,” says the…
It’s October folks, specifically the back half of October, which means we’re getting incredibly close to Halloween. Some people like to head out and party the night away, but for others, a low-key night at home or at the movies seems like a better plan. This year, there’s an abundance…
Though he’s probably best known as the “Kingslayer” Jaime Lannister on the hit HBO swords and sorcery series Game of Thrones, Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has been a respected actor in world cinema since his breakout performance in the 1994 film Nightwatch. That film was remade in 1997 starring Ewan…
Among its many attributes, Justin Simien’s exuberant debut feature, Dear White People, proves we’re not yet living in a “postracial America”: Forget for a moment there are so many vexing problems entwining race, class, and economics that we haven’t been able to put a Band-Aid on, let alone solve. In…
Let’s get this out of the way: Kristen Stewart is fine in Camp X-Ray, the tough-minded/soft-hearted drama that packs America’s sweetheart off to Guantánamo Bay. The fact that such casting seems unlikely might be part of why she succeeds. Tasked with patrolling a cellblock of detainees for 12 hours at…
Should we trust artists to tell the story of artists? On the plus side, who understands them better? If there’s a secret language of imagination and creativity, then the members of this sprawling tribe must be the ones who speak it best. On the other hand, could there be anything…
In one Nick Cave song, a pedophiliac outlaw caps a murder spree by killing the Devil himself. In another, the narrator muses on Miley Cyrus while seeking the “God particle” down a boulevard lined with burning trees. Cave is fluent in apocalyptic imagery and the Bible; his songs are filled…
It’s awards season and the hyped movies are starting to land in theaters. On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, we talk about Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, and Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip, and carve out some time to recommend Nothing Bad Can Happen and Glen…
Miami’s film community is on fire. From big festivals to international screenings, local filmmakers are making waves, and indie heavyweight Sundance is taking notice. The Sundance Institute announced this week that they will use $1 million in new funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to bring…
Another month, another exciting announcement from the Miami Jewish Film Festival on a new project to benefit the community. In partnership with Independent Lens Television Service (ITVS), WPBT2, the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning, and Temple Beth Sholom, MJFF is launching the Community Cinema series, which will feature…
For all the works that U.S. studios make that are set in foreign countries, it’s tough to come up with American animated films that are genuinely linked to the country that they portray. You’ve got things like Madagascar and Ratatouille set elsewhere, but these and others don’t engage with the…
Vara: A Blessing Khyentse Norbu’s Vara: A Blessing begins strong, introducing audiences to Lila, a young woman who practices the art of bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance that evokes the art of temple dancers. In its first act, the film proposes a bit of a flip on the typical route…
