In the now-classic, ingenious opening scene of Wes Craven’s Scream, Casey Becker howls at her assailant that she’s seen Friday the 13th “20 goddamn times!” Pathetic, Casey! Because I’ve seen Scream 103 times. I know this because I was 12. And I counted. The genre subverting (and genre-saving!) film turned 20 this month, proving that…
Two more Best Pics are down the drain, forever embedded into my mind’s eye…stealing me from sleep, leaving me all hot, bothered and occasionally, bored. The first: Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet from 1948. But gentle readers, doth must protest – or something – but Shakespeare and I are not friends. The more my high school English teacher crawled…
Mike Birbiglia’s second feature, Don’t Think Twice, tells the story of an Improv troupe in the throws of change, change that eventually leads to its disbanding. As the gangs’ lives begin to fracture, both apart and together, each character explores his or her place in the comedy world, steering the group toward comedic genius, disappointment…
Every year, I do a rundown of my picks for the Best Albums of the Year. Sometimes I rank them. Sometimes I don’t. I do what I want. In no particular order, here’s what kept my ears happy this year: Blood Orange – Freetown Sound Blood Orange, aka the London-born New Yorker Dev Hynes, is no…
When it comes to the modern horror anthology series, Trick ‘r Treat raised and reset the bar. It’s perhaps the champion of the genre, creating well-rounded characters whose stories overlap masterfully, while delivering all sorts of various scares and monsters in a mere 82 minutes. A Christmas Horror Story attempts to follow suit, instead taking…
If super fast alt-rock with a lot of horns is your jam, Goose Club’s The Goose Is Loose EP is for you. Hailing from the DC Metro area, Goose Club consists of Garrett Shaw (sax/keys/vocals), Dylan Nowak (vocals/guitar/trumpet), Kyle Shaw (bass) and Stan Chong (drums). On their new EP recorded at Inner Ear Studios (where the…
Growing up, one had to actually go out into the world to find the content he or she wanted to watch (insane, right?). It was a world of rummaging racks of VHS tapes—clam shells, Be Kind Rewind stickers, and all! The greatest horror finds were always in a dusty, dank corner, untouched by the masses.…
Fiona Apple never had a problem telling the world what’s up. Just look at her VMA’s acceptance speech from 1997 when she won Best New Artist. (Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Exhibits A-Z.) She’s a boss. Now, she’s back with a brand new Christmas song roasting that fuckface “President”-Elect, Donald Trump. In a new…
Christopher Guest is a maestro of the mockumentary whether he likes the term or not (he doesn’t). His movies shine a heckling light on some of art and culture’s more frenetic weirdos from community theater actors and dog show participants to folk artists looking to revive their claim to fame. The beauty of Guest’s work…
If your life was separated into three distinct time periods, what would be your defining moments? What struggles would haunt you through time, and how would you stand strong? Barry Jenkins’ coming-of-age film Moonlight examines this and more as Chiron (aka Little, aka Black) grapples with the adversity of his environment and the hardships that…