Think back to the worst thing you did in high school. Shoplifting? Busted with a joint? Trespassing while lit up on Boone’s Farm? Now, imagine you pulled your rite-of-passage no-goodnik routine in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in the early 2000s. You get busted, the cops get involved, you get hauled to the…
Created for German television, where it debuted last spring, the World War II epic Our Mothers, Our Fathers has since aired on Polish, Irish, and Swedish networks and now finds its way to a theatrical release, retitled Generation War for American audiences. Conceived and undertaken, in the words of producer…
Action heroes with nothing to lose are the best kind, perhaps the only kind worth watching. In the opening seconds of Jaume Collet-Serra’s Non-Stop, Liam Neeson’s federal air marshal Bill Marks slumps in his parked vehicle while sloshing a few glugs of whiskey into a paper cup and stirring it…
When we first meet the hero of Son of God, a kind of chintzy melodrama about the horrors of capital punishment, he’s approaching a fisherman with a classic boiler-room pitch: “Just give me an hour, and I will give you a whole new life,” Jesus (Diogo Morgado) promises Peter (Darwin…
In the admittedly dubious interest of using national stereotypes as a way of understanding human nature, let’s posit that while Americans have always emerged from the womb cheerfully, pleased with their right to pursue happiness, Russians were born to suffer. That may help explain why Fedor Bondarchuk’s 3D spectacle Stalingrad…
It was sad — Jay Leno’s 22 years hosting The Tonight Show ended with all the excitement of a guy farting at the mall. We all talked about his joke stealing and his talk-show stealing and how he’d played to the middle, threw away his talent. We were happy to…
“Sex films sell, and other stuff doesn’t . . . or at least not nearly as well,” says film preservationist Joe Rubin. Rubin, 24 years old, is one of the creators working Skinaflix, a VOD-style streaming video service he calls “the Netflix of porn.” At Vinegar Syndrome, a separate DVD/Blu-Ray–centric…
It’s an odd phenomenon when the world loses a celebrity. People are stricken with grief for a stranger they only knew through the lens of a camera. There’s a familiarity that exists, like a feeling of deja vu, all because this person played a character, be they beloved, hated, or…
With her oversized hat and sunglasses, Aimee Carrero looked as if she were fresh off a film set and strolling the streets of Los Angeles. In reality, she was just making time to share coffee and conversation with Cultist in her hometown of Miami. It was a casual Saturday afternoon,…
What does it take to make it as a professional musician, and what does art matter for anyway? That’s some pretty deep shit, but it’s exactly the soul-searching mission Red Bull’s new film What Difference Does it Make? undertakes. Directed by upstart film-maker Raf Schmerberg, interestingly hand-picked for the project…
Comparisons to Romeo and Juliet are unfair. The Oscar-nominated foreign language film Omar has something much more complex than star-crossed lovers under its surface. Set in the dangerous West Bank, a territory cut in half by a humongous wall, the titular character scales said obstacle to meet the leader of…
In 1990, the same year that Kevin Costner released the massive global hit Dances with Wolves, a curious thing happened in France. The name Kevin became the country’s most popular for new babies, a Gaelic moniker edging out national stalwarts like Antoine and Jules. Imagine if everyone in America suddenly…
Weed is awesome, and even though just last year, Governor Rick Scott banned the sale of bongs (huh?), it seems Florida is finally coming around to the good stuff. Lest you potheads forget, medical marijuana is officially on the ballot. Habitual smokers are usually depicted as hard to motivate, but…
Almost a pop history of Western culture’s relationship to female orgasm, Charlie Stratton’s In Secret is a spirited zip through Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, a sex-and-sin morality tale of the sort that has been the template for the last decade of Woody Allen dramas. Unlike those, In Secret boasts vigor and…
Almost a pop history of Western culture’s relationship to female orgasm, Charlie Stratton’s In Secret is a spirited zip through Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, a sex-and-sin morality tale of the sort that has been the template for the last decade of Woody Allen dramas. Unlike those, In Secret boasts vigor…
Here’s the last thing I ever would have expected out of Pompeii, that sword-thrust of 3D gladiator-vs.-volcano madness coming right at your disbelieving eyeholes. An hour or so in, when Vesuvius exhausts its portentous rumblings and blows its top (3D!), I legitimately wasn’t ready. Yes, all that third-act destruction is…
No matter what else he does, director Sam Raimi has two unassailable fan favorites under his belt: 1987’s Evil Dead 2, and the 1992 trilogy-capper Army of Darkness. (His first film, 1981’s The Evil Dead, is more “respected” than “loved” by the fans.) Released between those two films, Raimi’s 1990…
It doesn’t feature iPhones, Twitter, or an internet, and yet Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop remains perhaps the most prescient sci-fi effort of the past 30 years — a work from 1987 whose continuing relevance is matched by the fact that no one would dare make it today. Or, at least, remake…
Just as animated characters who look too human creep us out, could there be a phenomenon we might call the RomCom Uncanny Valley, a case when movie stars’ gorgeousness fully outshines our ability to believe their characters’ humdrum relationship problems? Radiant lovers make radiant love — and then argue about…
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, both of which publish special daily issues at the major international festivals, may be the most famous movie trade magazines. But every morning at any of these festivals, including Berlin, most critics I know – and probably plenty of industry people, too – turn to…
It’s a little sad that Colin Farrell has outgrown roles that require him to wear raggedy sweaters and say things like “For fook’s sake!” It had to happen, though. Farrell has always made a terrific bad boy, but he clearly knows he couldn’t be a scamp forever, and he seems…
“Goodbye, Facebook. Goodbye, iPhone. Hello, Saint Vladimir’s,” dropout Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) groans when she and her best friend, Lissa (Lucy Fry), are dragged back to the titular school they ditched when they ran away to live normalish lives in Portland. Despite their year outside the gates, human culture remains…
