SOLO: A Star Wars Story (Directed by Ron Howard, 135 minutes, USA, 2018) BY JON SOLOMON & MAGGIE SOLOMON-SCHELLER It was 1978. Maybe 1979. I was sitting in my chair at Johnson Park Elementary School looking at my full name written on a piece of paper. Suddenly, I gasped quietly. ??Born Jonathan Solomon, and fully immersed in the orbit of Star Wars for at least a year by this point, I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t noticed it sooner.?? I put a finger on my left hand over all but the last three letters of my first name. ??I put […]
Every Star Wars Movie Ranked Worst To Best
IN LEIA WE TRUST: Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart BY JON SOLOMON JEDI CORRESPONDENT Always in motion is the future. So too, to a lesser extent, are my rankings of the Star Wars films. They seemingly fluctuate slightly based on mood, time elapsed since last viewing or what my daughter wants to watch when home sick from school. As of press time, having yet to see the soon-to-be-released Solo: A Star Wars Story (SEE ABOVE), I’d go with the following, adding two caveats: There is a steep, precarious drop in quality between the bottom three films and the top six films. […]
CINEMA: The Grateful Dead
DEADPOOL 2 (Directed by David Leitch, 119 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Ryan Reynolds returns as everyone’s favorite Merc with a mouth in Deadpool 2, one of the most anticipated blockbusters of the summer. The first installment of turned the superhero genre on its head with its hard-R, low budget take on the fan favorite character that was known for not only his miraculous regenerative abilities, but his penchant for breaking the fourth wall, providing a bizarre meta-commentary on the comic book world. With original director Tim Miller walking away from the sequel due to “creative differences,” […]
INCOMING: Bohemian Rhapsody
A Queen biopic with Mr. Robot‘s Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury? We are so there. Opens November 2nd. BILLBOARD: After a 10-second teaser trailer dropped on Monday (May 14), briefly revealing star Rami Malek in his Mercury get up, the full trailer proved that the Mr. Robot actor was the only choice that made sense. Malek has already earned praise for his uncanny resemblance to Mercury, and the blitz of scenes in which he inhabits the flamboyant rock star in a variety of colorful outfits and through multiple hair eras is evidence that the wait was worth it. The trailer […]
CHILDISH GAMBINO: This Is America
This is America Don’t catch you slippin up Look at how I’m livin now Police be trippin now Yeah, This Is America Guns in my area I got the strap I gotta carry’ em #ChildishGambino #DonaldGlover RELATED: Five Things To Know About “This Is America” Video RELATED: Interview With Director Hiro Murai THE NEW YORKER: The Glovers were Jehovah’s Witnesses. They believed that Satan controls life on earth, that only a hundred and forty-four thousand anointed Christians will be saved to Heaven with Jesus, and that we are living out the last days before Armageddon. Stephen Glover said, “We were […]
CINEMA: The End Of The World As We Know It
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (Dir. by Anthony & Joe Russo, 149 min., USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC More than a decade in the making, Avengers: Infinity War is Marvel Studios most ambitious story to date, bringing together the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to take on its greatest threat, the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin), in an apocalyptic fight to the finish. First glimpsed in the post-credit stinger at the end of the first Avengers film and remaining just outside the periphery of our heroes over the course of Phase 2 and Phase 3, the coming of Thanos promises […]
CINEMA: Guided By Voices
AARDVARK (Directed by Brian Shoaf, 89 minutes, 2018, USA) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Aardvark is the feature length debut of writer/director Brian Shoaf, and features an intriguing ensemble cast starring Zachary Quinto, Jenny Slate, Jon Hamm and Sheila Vand. Ostensibly, Aardvark is a “thriller” that tackles one man’s struggle with mental illness and the ghosts that haunt him. Aardvark splits its narrative between Josh (Quinto), a troubled young schizophrenic trying to get his life on the right track, and Emily (Jenny Slate), his licensed clinical social worker. As the film begins Josh has a new job, is back on […]
CINEMA: I, Gamer
READY PLAYER ONE (Dir. by Steven Spielberg, 140 minutes, 2018, USA) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Ready Player One is director Steven Spielberg’s cinematic adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 best selling novel of the same name. Considering the book itself was a love letter to a decade in which Spielberg reigned supreme, it is something of a meta move for Spielberg to helm the film adaption. Curiously, Spielberg chose to tone down the book’s dozens of references to the his own work, while taking some fascinating liberties with the material. The resulting film is Spielberg doing what he does best: […]
CINEMA: Dog Day Afternoon
ISLE OF DOGS (Directed by Wes Anderson, 101 minutes, USA, 2018) BY JONATHAN VALANIA Near the end of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, Snoopy, a wire-hair fox terrier owned by Sam Shakusky, the bespectacled, coonskin-capped orphan-on-the-lam at the center of the film, is accidentally killed by an errant arrow. By way of eulogy, Sam is asked if Snoopy was a good dog. Unwittingly channeling the louche moral relativism of a Left Bank existentialist, Sam shrugs wearily and asks “Who’s to say?” Anderson’s new film, a stop-motion animated puppet pageant called Isle Of Dogs, dispenses with any and all such moral ambiguity: […]
Win Tix To A Super-Exclusive, Once-In-A-Lifetime Special VIP Advanced Screening Of The New Wes Anderson Animated Insta-Classic Isle Of Dogs
Wes Anderson is the two-word answer to the increasingly asked question: What good is a liberal arts education? There are times in this country’s history when we’ve had to take stock and ask ourselves: Do we really want to live in a world without English majors? And this is one of them. Let us rejoice, then, bundled up in our Blonde On Blonde scarves and winter beards, in this the darkest hour in American life since the rockets red glare and the twilight’s last gleaming, and check-in to The Hotel Andersonia where we will shelter in high style for […]
Q&A With New York Magazine Film Critic Matt Zoller Seitz, Author Of The Wes Anderson Collection
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on March 14, 2014 Matt Zoller Seitz is the TV critic for New York magazine and Vulture.com and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. A Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker, Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image and The L Magazine, among other outlets. His five part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was later spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. Seitz is the founder and […]
CINEMA: Back In The USSR
DEATH OF STALIN (Directed by Armando Iannucci, 107 minutes, 2018, USA) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITICThe Death of Stalin is a hilariously morose comedy based on the French graphic novel La mort de Staline by Fabien Nury (Les chroniques de Legion). Director Armando Iannucci (Veep) brings his razor-sharp eye for political satire to Stalinist Russia without skipping a beat in a film that is way more relevant than it has any right to be today. The director even opted to “tone down real-life absurdity” to make the film, which has been banned in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan a bit […]
CINEMA: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom), Won’t You Be My Neighbor? takes an intimate look at America’s favorite neighbor: Mister Fred Rogers. A portrait of a man whom we all think we know, this emotional and moving film takes us beyond the zip-up cardigans and the land of make-believe, and into the heart of a creative genius who inspired generations of children with compassion and limitless imagination. Opens June 8th in select theaters.