Recent Articles
Film,
It's not easy being famous, as the famous love to remind us. Just ask Jennifer Aniston, Kid Rock, or any of the other instantly recognizable talking heads director Kevin Mazur has assembled for his docu-evisceration of the parasitic celebrity apparatus,…
by Alan Scherstuhl
January 9, 2013
Tags: Film, Film, Kevin Mazur, Jennifer Aniston, Kid Rock, Jennifer Lopez
Film,
While they almost certainly have plans for striking new projects that expand our understanding of what documentaries can be, Bill and Turner Ross — the co-directors, -producers, -camera operators, and -troublemakers behind Tchoupitoulas — could do posterity a service if…
by Alan Scherstuhl
January 2, 2013
Tags: Film, Film, New Orleans, Turner Ross, Los Angeles, Andrew Jackson, Roxie Theater, Video
Culture,
Books
In an age when the price of a movie ticket can get you three hours of hang-time in Middle Earth, fantasy worlds aren’t exactly at a premium. But stories that brush up against the truly fantastic, that capture anew some…
by Alan Scherstuhl
January 2, 2013
Tags: Books, Books, Elizabeth Hand, Jon Peterson, Peter Jackson, Dungeons & Dragons
Film,
The ravishing and kitschy Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away is the rare movie whose title serves as an accurate indicator of whether you would enjoy seeing it. If you think it sounds good, it damn straight is; if not, beware…
by Alan Scherstuhl
December 26, 2012
Tags: Film, Film, Cirque du Soleil, Andrew Adamson, Busby Berkeley, Igor Zaripov
Film,
Sadly, country songwriters stand as nearly the only entertainers in our popular culture who craft memorable art on the subject of marriage, the state in which just less than half of Americans spend the majority of their lives. A few…
by Alan Scherstuhl
December 19, 2012
Tags: Film, Film, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, Maude Apatow
Film,
It's dispiriting that a film about the romantic life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who cultivated a small coterie of mistresses, should exhibit so little interest in what so engaged its hero: the women's individual hearts and minds. Instead, Hyde Park…
by Alan Scherstuhl
December 12, 2012
Tags: Film, Film, Bill Murray, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hyde Park on Hudson, Laura Linney, Video
Culture,
The Exhibitionist
Seriously, almost an hour passes before he exits that door.With the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Peter Jackson has given the world 162 minutes of imaginative visions never before realized on a movie screen, save for those in…
@The Exhibitionist
by Alan Scherstuhl
December 7, 2012 @ 9:30 am
Tags: Film, Humor, book, hobbit, hobbit unexpected journey, length, movie, peter jackson, tolkien
Film,
Another dark comedy exposing the wormy dirt beneath suburban sod, The Details never lays bare any truths we haven't known since, say, Revolutionary Road — the book. But a gorgeous, pungent shot early on of that sod and those worms…
by Alan Scherstuhl
November 7, 2012
Tags: Film, Film, Tobey Maguire, Laura Linney, Elizabeth Banks, Jacob Aaron Estes, Video
Culture,
Books
A laugh-out-loud apocalypse, a daft two-against-the-world love story, and a science-fiction satire of the godawful way advertising can cram everything but itself right out of our brains, Andri Snær Magnason's LoveStar (SevenStories Press, $16.95, 320 pages) is the rare novel…
by Alan Scherstuhl
November 7, 2012
Tags: Books, Books, Reinventing Bach, Paul Elie, Amazon.com Inc., Anne Frank
Film,
Film Feature
The first few minutes of Lincoln play out like a parody of the expectations of Steven Spielberg's detractors. The Great Emancipator rests like a humble Solomon upon a hard wooden chair, surrounded by freely mixing black and white soldiers of…
by Alan Scherstuhl
November 7, 2012
Tags: Film Feature, Column, Lincoln (Movie), Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan, Gettysburg
