What’s with all the Kevin Costner movies lately? In the past 12 months he’s appeared in Man of Steel, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and 3 Days to Kill. Given the quality of these movies, maybe he should have stayed semi-retired. It’s not like the movies he made beforehand were much better, but at least his […]
The beauty of the Blue Ridge is an unparalleled testament to nature’s splendor, and the Wild & Scenic Film Festival showcases that magic through a dazzling collection of documentaries from around the region. The festival dives headfirst into the wild, capturing breathtaking moments while examining its delicate relationship with humanity. Wednesday 4/16 & Thursday 4/17. Wednesday: $10, […]
Three graphic designers decide to start a band… It sounds like the beginning of a joke about Brooklyn, but is actually the basis of the inspirational documentary If We Shout Loud Enough about Baltimore’s now defunct trio Double Dagger. Started as a concept band, Double Dagger gained a passionate following and reinvigorated the Baltimore music […]
Nici Cumpston sees landscape art as more than the simple depiction of world locales. Through photography, she tells the story of a place, preserves the history of a people, and enriches our understanding of the human experience. Her newest collection, titled “having-been-there,” focuses on [...]
Inventions Inventions/Temporary Residence Ltd. The mark of a truly great artist is one that despite being entrenched in a genre, still has the power to surprise you. Inventions is the side project of Matthew Cooper (Eluvium) and Mark T. Smith (Explosions in the Sky), and just as atmospheric [...]
Forget all of the hype surrounding Noah. What really matters is whether the movie is any good. It isn’t. To paraphrase Edward Burns, it is dull, dreary, dry and a bore. Noah—and by implication its director and co-screenwriter Darren Aronofsky—can’t decide whether it’s a big head trip (an [...]
Erica Arvold is seated in a D.C. auditorium awaiting the start of the first episode of AMC’s new show “Turn,” a suspenseful drama chronicling the movements of America’s first spy ring during the Revolutionary War. It’s a suspenseful moment in itself for Arvold—this is the first time viewers [...]
The glaring pomp and circumstance of Superbowl Sunday was saddened this year by the untimely death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. As an actor, Hoffman was unparalleled at imbuing his characters with humanity. He rendered misfits relatable, cretins compelling, and gifted artists attainable, and his [...]
Venture into the new West with a handful of horse trainers on a 100-day journey to select and tame wild mustangs for adoption in the poignant, award-winning documentary Wild Horse, Wild Ride. Directors Alex Dawson and Greg Gricus follow a host of colorful, true life characters ranging from [...]
The word “animation” conjures up the glorious childhood routine of plopping in front of the television on Saturday mornings for hours on end. However, that’s just a small glance at an incredibly varied and ever-evolving genre. Early animation ranged from magic lanterns and zoetropes to [...]
Audrey Rose The Bomb Shelter Sessions/Self-released Nashville-based singer-songwriter Audrey Rose strikes a chord on her latest EP, The Bomb Shelter Sessions. These five songs have a beautiful grittiness that conveys a young woman’s struggles, joys, pains, and moments of respite in a powerful [...]
Need for Speed is a movie in need of two reviews. In fact, I read somewhere that its original title was Need for Speed: Judge Us On Our Merits, Not On Yours. And I either made that original title up or the movie is so subversive it planted that title in my head. But whatever. […]
Charlottesville was closer to being represented at last Sunday’s Academy Awards than a lot of people realize. While Darlene Love of 20 Feet From Stardom sang during the acceptance speech for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, local cinematographer Todd Free watched from his couch on Belmont [...]
Jeff Bridges reunited with the Coen brothers in the 2010 Oscar-nominated Western drama, True Grit, based on Charles Portis’ novel of the same name. Seeking revenge for her father’s murder, cantankerous farm girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires the surly U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
It’s too early in the year to be making predictions about next year’s Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature, but let’s go ahead and put The Lego Movie at the top of the list. In a time of lackluster animated films (see—or don’t: The Nut Job) it’s refreshing to watch animation that [...]