LAMBERT & STAMP (2014, directed by James D. Cooper, 117 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The 1979 documentary The Kids Are Alright was one of the early classics of the rockumentary genre, a mad bash-up with the four characters who made up The Who. The film did a lot to burnish their artistic legend but years later it is apparent that the doc left out the guiding force that nurtured them into the band they would become: the visionary management of the duo known as Lambert & Stamp. Director James D. Cooper’s unusually intimate portrait of the band’s […]

The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nicknamed “The Wolfpack,” they’re all exceedingly bright, are homeschooled, have no acquaintances outside their family and have practically never left their home. All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously, using elaborate homemade props and costumes. For years this has served as a productive creative outlet and a way to stave off loneliness – but after one of the brothers escapes the apartment (wearing a Michael Meyers […]

  Just released movie poster for forthcoming Amy Winehouse doc, Amy, which opens in the U.S. on July 10th. DAILY BEAST: How Mr. Winehouse Exploited Amy VULTURE: The Complicated New Amy Winehouse Doc PREVIOUSLY:  Amy Winehouse, Lady Who Sang The Blues, Dead At 27 PREVIOUSLY: BBC: Amy Winehouse Was Planning Jazz Super Group With ?uestlove Of The Roots PREVIOUSLY: The Lonesome Death Of Amy Winehouse PREVIOUSLY: Amy Winehouse Has Emphysema & Lump In Breast PREVIOUSLY:  INDISUPUTABLE: Amy Winehouse Has Become The Most Persuasive Anti-Drug Ad We Have Ever Seen PREVIOUSLY: BACK IN BLACK: Amy Winehouse Cleans Up Nice PREVIOUSLY:  AMY […]

  MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015, directed by George Miller, 120 minutes, Australia) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Seconds into the heavily-lauded Mad Max reboot my heart slowly started to sink. Staring over the desert landscape Max nonchalantly stomps on an animated Geico-like gekko and pops him into his mouth. Despite all the advance press declaring the fourth in this series was going to be an old-school, live stunt-driven film it quickly becomes apparent that just like George Lucas, George Miller had found irresistible the possibility of controlling every inch of the frame with CGI. This layer of artifice is […]

Very impressive NYU student film about a college dude so obsessed with Drake that he goes Mark David Chapman on his idol to save him the ignominy of impending mediocrity. It’s a lot funnier than it sounds on paper. THE FADER: The premise of If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, a short film about an obsessive Drake fan, is cribbed from a Biggie track off of Life After Death, but also from a long legacy of fans-turned-killers: “It’s almost like you’re nobody until somebody kills you,” the film’s unnamed protagonist paraphrases, before preparing a plan to murder Drake so […]

  BY EMMA BAILEY What does it mean to be “human”? What is it that separates our consciousness from all the other creatures of Earth? Is human consciousness quantifiably superior to the beasts of the field? We could go back and forth on this topic all day, but you don’t see birds debating Derrida or solving long division problems, and yet there is something exquisite about the Zen-like simplicity of their existence. Why do humans insist on complicating things? In a blink of time’s eye, the dinosaurs became extinct, mammals came down from the trees, and mankind developed a unique […]

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (2014, directed by Olivier Assayas, 124 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Where has the time gone? Gazing up at the endlessly beguiling Juliette Binoche I realized it has been over 30 years that she has graced the screen as various intelligent and vulnerable women and yet in each role there was a sense we are meeting her anew. Her latest film, Olivier (Irma Vep, Carlos) Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria reflects on Binoche’s age and sensitivity by teaming her with a pair of acclaimed young American actresses, Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and the cute round-faced […]

TRUE STORY (2015, directed by Rupert Goold, 100 minutes, USA) BY COLE NOWLIN True story: Jonah Hill and James Franco co-star in a movie without a single dick-joke, bro-hug, or bong rip. Instead of phallic digressions, there is tense dialogue and a relentless search for truth. If you are looking for laughs, sit this one out, otherwise you will be hard pressed to find a truly comedic moment. Instead, True Story grapples with big ideas about identity, authenticity, and situational ethics. Jonah Hill plays Michael Finkel, a promising journalist for the New York Times who goes from Pulitzer hopeful to […]

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (2014, directed by Noah Baumbach, 97 minutes, U.S.) THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014, directed by Wim Wender & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, 110 minutes, Germany) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I’ve “liked” or “loved” all of Noah Baumbach’s directorial work up to now which makes his latest While We’re Young feel like a sad departure, the point where a filmmaker gives in to convention at the same spots where previous works like The Squid & the Whale and Margot at the Wedding once defied it. Baumbach has created quite a catalog of disgruntled square pegs across six […]

  TORTURE DUNGEON (1969, directed by Andy Milligan, 77 minutes U.S.) BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1970, directed by Andy Milligan, 79 minutes, U.S./U.K.) THE MAN WITH TWO HEADS (1972, directed by Andy Milligan, 80 minutes U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC One of the must perverse cinematic cults of film history gets a full bow this Friday at the International House when Exhumed Films presents a triple feature of the films of Staten Island auteur, Andy Milligan. Made on the stringiest of shoestring budgets, Milligan’s shrill little misanthropic films were produced to play to grindhouse audiences of the 1960s and 70s. The […]

  Yesterday, Vice released a short film entitled Mr. Happy, directed by Collin Tilley and starring Chance The Rapper. Chance plays Victor, a depressed loner who comes across a website called MrHappy.com which provides an unusual service: you can hire a hitman to kill you. I’m a big fan of Chance since he became nationally known through his hit mixtape Acid Rap last summer, so naturally I was excited to see the film. Chance’s lyrics capture a type of angst, or insecurity that is so hard to encapsulate, so, after reading a quick blurb, it was clear this role was […]