Reboots and re-imaginings
“The X Factor” Wednesday-Thursday 8pm, Fox Simon Cowell exports his other hugely successful televised talent show to America, and it’s already courting controversy before the first episode airs. British pop-star […]
Buddy cops
First, a warning: Don’t try this at home. However much it may seem like a piece of cake to build a whole movie around a lazy, lonely, corrupt, faux-racist, foul-mouthed […]
Writing on the walls
Most people with English rattling around their heads give little thought to what their language looks like. Typeface and handwriting vanish quickly behind the meaning of the words they form. […]
The underground actor
A barrel-chested man with a white beard and a casual manner, James “Ike” Eichling strikes up a conversation on anything, anywhere. He is most often found in his Downtown Mall […]
Quiet destroyer
As the Microphones, the Anacortes, Washington-based musician Phil Elverum released The Glow, Pt. 2 in 2001, through the tastemaking K Records. The record channeled analogue warmth and a personal style that turned the songwriter and studio whiz into one of indie rock’s most respected.
Checking in with John Milliken Thompson
What were you doing when we called? I was actually correcting a blog that I’ve been working on, a guest post about my novel for a book reviewer. They just […]
In with the new
“Ringer” Tuesday 9pm, CW Buffy is back! Well, not really, but Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to TV with this new thriller about identical twin sisters in trouble. Recently sober Bridget […]
Play catch
Contagion is named for the film’s most developed character. That might seem unfair to the human actors, who play their parts—Marion Cotillard an epidemiologist, Matt Damon a paragon of endurance, […]
Minding her beeswax
To be a sculptor or a painter these days means living and dying by the photographs on your website. Martha Saunders, who has painted with beeswax for the last decade, often jokes about switching to a medium that's easier to photograph than encaustic, but she is quick to credit photographer Scott Smith with bringing her work to life online.
Payback
When I found out what The Debt was really about, I greeted it with a sense of relief. Here’s what this movie is not: some hectoring documentary about Congress figuring […]