BY COLE NOWLIN Reaction to American Sniper — the new Clint Eastwood film starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in American military history, with 160 confirmed kills in Iraq — has run the gamut of love and hate. Some have likened it to Quentin Tarantino’s version of Nazi propaganda, others have called it one of the “great pieces of American poetry.” People who have seen the film seem most divided by three key aspects of American Sniper: Whether Kyle was a war hero or a remorseless killing machine The historical accuracy of American Sniper’s portrayal of […]

Artwork by JUAN OSBORNE ROLLING STONE: We get the unfiltered Kurt experience, all disturbing sketches, poems in progress and aspirational lists. We also get a disjointed, disorienting look at fame through his eyes, seen as a jumble of shows, news reports and vapid TV interrogations that all bleed together. And we get an uncomfortably intimate look at his life with Courtney, including self-shot close-ups of the couple making out, bitching about their treatment in the press and a pregnant Love showing off her breasts. This is a couple drunk on love, and per the glossy-to-tabloid reports that Morgen sprinkles in, […]

SELMA (2014, Directed by Ava DuVernay, 128 Minutes, U.S.) BY ZACHARY SHEVICH FILM CRITIC Selma opens with Martin Luther King Jr. practicing his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in the mirror, anxiously second-guessing his choice of tie. It’s a rare departure to portray the revered leader of the civil rights movement as a complex, all-too-human being no more immune than the rest of us to life’s trivialities, rather than a messianic figure delivering his people from bondage — although, in fact, he was/is both. Director Ava Duvernay (I Will Follow, Middle of Nowhere) projects a nuanced perspective of the events […]

VICE: On Tuesday, Pahlaj Nihalani was appointed India’s Censor Board chief after his predecessor, Leela Samson resigned, citing “interference, coercion, and corruption.” The cause: The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal had overruled her decision to keep the movie MSG: The Messenger of God, out of theaters. MSG: The Messenger of God is a terrible name for a movie that isn’t about Moses delivering cheap Chinese food (producers, call me), but the actual issue is that the goofball protagonist of the film is a thinly veiled stand-in for the actor playing him. That actor is the so-called “Guru in Bling,” or Gurmeet […]

  The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, directed by Wes Anderson, 99 minutes, USA) BY JONATHAN VALANIA  Wes Anderson is the two-word answer to the increasingly asked question: What good is a liberal arts education? Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom, that’s what.There have been times in this country’s history when we’ve had to take stock, look into our hearts and ask ourselves: Do we really want to live in a world without English majors? And this is one of those times. Which only makes The Grand Budapest Hotel, director Wes Anderson’s eighth full-length feature, all the more […]

  BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC If the state of the world tends to shade your personal mood, it is pretty easy to consider 2014 a year of epic trauma and bad vibes. I was thinking it was an off year for film too but when I went over my notes it turns out there was a lot to be enthusiastic about, although we again seem to be thirsting for truly original American cinema this year. Here’s a baker’s dozen films that took me to new places, many of them seeming like they could be made in no other time […]

  BIG EYES (2014 Directed by Tim Burton; 105 minutes, U.S.) BY ZACHARY SHEVICH FILM CRITIC Big Eyes chronicles the strange but true story of the origin and rise to cultural prominence of Margaret Keane’s distinctive wide-eyed paintings and the ensuing controversy about their authorship that pitted Margaret against Walter Keane in a court of law vying for credit. Big Eyes is a stripped down, smaller budget film far more in the spirit of director Tim Burton’s early work than his more recent ventures into CGI-heavy, gaudily gothic, and, frankly, less interesting output. The film, starring Not Helena Bonham Carter […]

  THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (2014, directed by Peter Jackson, 144 minutes, New Zealand, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Like Frodo drunk with the power of The Ring, Peter Jackson could not resist his greedy plan of making a near eight hour version of The Hobbit. Now in its concluding chapter, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies is an oddly affectless spectacle, emotionally inert, barren of thrills and in the end downright dull. The goodwill Jackson accrued from his wildly successful Lord Of The Rings trilogy has allowed The Hobbit‘s gaping flaws to be […]

#Blackmendream from Shikeith on Vimeo. NPR: Nine men sit turned away from the camera; their faces are never shown. Many are shirtless or naked. They answer questions like: When did you become a black man? Do you cry? How were you raised to deal with your emotions? This short film, called #Blackmendream, is the latest piece by Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist Shikeith Cathey. His work centers around the social, cultural and political misconceptions about black men in America, and the new film explores the emotional experience of black men, born out of those misconceptions. The men seem both vulnerable and powerful […]

  TOP FIVE (2014, directed by Chris Rock, 102 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There is a pretty wide swath of agreement that Chris Rock is one of the funniest guys alive, so why has it taken him so long to produce a decent movie vehicle for himself? Since stealing scenes from Eddie Murphy in 1987’s Beverly Hills Cop II, Rock been a fixture on movie screens but almost never in something worthy of his talents. (The one exception was his turn with Julie Delpy in 2012’s 2 Days in New York. And maybe Pootie-Tang.). Rock’s best vehicle […]