William Fitzsimmons Lions/Nettwerk Records Lions is a towering achievement. A deeply personal record loaded with gravitas, the album feels like Fitzsimmons’ confessional or at the very least a reflection on life, love, death, moving on, and his relationships. From the opening strains of the gorgeous acoustic track “Well Enough,” where Fitzsimmons wonders about the mark […]
William Fitzsimmons Lions/Nettwerk Records Lions is a towering achievement. A deeply personal record loaded with gravitas, the album feels like Fitzsimmons’ confessional or at the very least a reflection on life, love, death, moving on, and his relationships. From the opening strains of the gorgeous acoustic track “Well Enough,” where Fitzsimmons wonders about the mark […]
Is there any way to appropriately review 300: Rise of an Empire? This is a movie that has—whether it knows it or not—no ideology or purpose or ambition to be anything but a blood-and-guts spectacle on a massive scale. In fact, the blood and guts are so prevalent and unsparing they grow monotonous. Sure, there are […]
I’m tinkering with a new free app, and I’m totally hooked. I’m looking at my iPhone every five seconds to see if there’s a number next to the app icon, evidence I have the all-important new “notification.” I’m opening the app every five minutes to see if my feed has updated. I’m telling all my […]
There’s a line in the song “So Lonely” by The Police that seems relevant when discussing the Academy Awards: “No surprise, no mystery.” Was anyone surprised that Chiwetel Ejiofor, who gave the best performance in the most important movie of 2013 (that’s 12 Years a Slave), lost out to Matthew McConaughey, who gave a nearly-as-good […]
By now we’re all familiar with Luc Besson’s oeuvre, right? You may remember him as the writer responsible for resurrecting Liam Neeson’s career with Taken, a movie in which young women can do nothing for themselves while older men beat the shit out of other men who would do the women harm. With Taken, Besson sort […]
The Presidents of the United States of America Kudos to You!/Self-released If you’ve been part of The Presidents of the United States of America bandwagon for any length of time, you know how much of a hoot these guys can be. With the first new album in six years, The Presidents prove to be as irreverent […]
We’ve reached a point in the movie business when we’re so devoid of new and good ideas we’re recycling old and bad ideas. Such is the case with Endless Love, a remake of a 1981 Brooke Shields-starring soapfest that is remembered for making a decent amount of money, for an early appearance by Tom Cruise, […]
The poster for George Clooney’s The Monuments Men has that wow factor. Not the poster itself—a bunch of guys standing next to each other smirking or stony-faced is kind of dull. But look at the names on the left. Clooney. Matt Damon. Bill Murray. John Goodman. Jean Dujardin. Bob Balaban. Hugh Bonneville. Cate Blanchett. Now, […]
Bid boredom adieu with seven subtitled screenings at the University of Virginia’s French Film Festival. Award-winning Cameroonian director Jean-Pierre Békolo leads discussions on his filmmaking practices in the sci-fi erotic thriller Les Saignantes and the controversial political drama Le Président. Additional films run the gamut from a star-studded melodrama (De Rouille et d’Os, featuring Marion […]
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Give the People What They Want/Daptone Records Give the People What They Want is an apt title because this 11-piece outfit knows its audience through and through. Once again, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings deliver the goods by skillfully combining ’60s-era Motown, soul with the verve of ’70s-era funk, and R&B […]