Let’s answer your most pressing question about Obvious Child: Yes, Paul Simon’s song “Obvious Child” appears in the movie. Twice. Unless you’ve been avoiding press about movies since January, you know Obvious Child is a romantic comedy in which the main character, Donna (Jenny Slate), has an abortion. But that’s not entirely what the movie […]
Let’s answer your most pressing question about Obvious Child: Yes, Paul Simon’s song “Obvious Child” appears in the movie. Twice. Unless you’ve been avoiding press about movies since January, you know Obvious Child is a romantic comedy in which the main character, Donna (Jenny Slate), has an abortion. But that’s not entirely what the movie […]
The most beguiling thing about Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida is its look. Its cinematography, by Ryszard Lenczewksi and Lukasz Zal, is so beautiful that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a challenging drama about faith, love, loss, and the ravages of war on identity. Each shot is so artfully composed, in fact, that the photographic artistry […]
The flat screen is unassuming—a 60″ monitor mounted to the wall in UVA’s Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library. Surrounded by chairs and headphones, The Niche currently plays a loop of video from the stop-motion animation program “Stop & Go: Made from Scratch.” Sounds benign, but associate professor of new media Lydia Moyer sees it as […]
It’s going to be an exciting summer at Light House Studio. The local youth filmmaking nonprofit’s website redesign is up and running, and they have a new location for their summer workshops while the City Center for Contemporary Arts—also home to Live Arts and Second Street Gallery—undergoes renovations. Inside the studio, a group of Light […]
Wetwood Smokes Earth Tones & Red/Self-released This Southern California-based rock trio has released a gem of a debut. Mixing rock and pop together with the precision and skill of a veteran act, Wetwood Smokes makes quite a statement with this release. The swelling piano pop of “I Am the One” is college radio perfect, while […]
It’s not unreasonable to imagine that Tom Cruise, perhaps the last of the old school movie stars, had lost it. He hasn’t had a bona fide hit since 2011 with Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, and as good as some of that movie is, it certainly coasts on the strength of being part of a big franchise. […]
Sometimes it’s nice to see a nice movie. “Nice” is a bad word—it’s usually reserved for people who are inoffensive but undatable or your grandmother’s ruminations on her flower garden—but occasionally the word just works. “Nice” is a good description of Chef, writer-director Jon Favreau’s return to smaller stories after the gargantuan (and flat, and […]
John Johnson doesn’t spook easy. An avid fan of all things macabre, the film director built his career on mauled bodies, zombies, spine-tingling hauntings, and heinous murders. But the pending release of his latest work has him shivering. “The day Plan 9 gets released to general audiences I will be probably be hiding in a […]
Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt For Keeps/Red House Records Whether performing individually or as a duo, Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt have proven themselves to be two of Austin’s most engaging singer-songwriters in recent years. For Keeps only furthers this opinion. Whether marrying dusty vocals on the charming “If I Need to Know,” or singing about […]
It just so happens that Adam Sandler once made good movies. More than once, even. There’s Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. And on the odd occasion he acts in a drama, he gives good performances in the so-so Punch-Drunk Love, the flawed Reign Over Me and the highly flawed but watchable Funny People. But whatever. There […]