After the unprecedented crossover success of Psy’s hit single Gangnam Style – about the horse-dancing absurdities of the rich in South Korea — Im Sang-soo’s follow-up to 2010′s The Housemaid would seem to be coming along at the right time. Set in the same luxuriously moneyed world as The Housemaid, The Taste of Money is a...
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There are a few stories this week that won’t die. Lance Armstrong cheating, Mant T’eo and his Catfish girlfriend, and the debacle that is Paul Schrader’s “last chance” film, The Canyons – more specifically, Lindsay Lohan’s appearance in it. The Sunday NY Times Magazine feature last weekend detailed all of the behind the scenes dirt about...
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From the trailer, it looked like Stefan Ruzowitzky’s wintry casino heist film Deadfall had all of the makings of a tight, gripping psychological thriller. Everything looked right, from the twisted, broken family angle to the Thanksgiving blizzard setting that eventually sets the deadly Addison (Eric Bana) against Jay Mills (Charlie Hunnam), the boxer just out of...
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I wrote about the problem with Tokyo theater closings a few months in the paper after hearing word through a few translated articles that there was as seemingly an epidemic of theater closings about to happen. Well, as the Ashai Shimbun has it, they’re beginning to happen now: The curtain has come down on...
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I’m not sure if I’ve lost more waking hours or sleeping hours to Tetris, but it’s a depressing number of each. A person can’t just casually play Tetris. A distant cousin of games like dominos and Breakout, at its slowest levels Tetris a perfectly simple game of creating lines for points. At its highest...
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Everything about the fundamental mechanics of baseball seems simple. Kids stuff. That’s when we come to it, as little kids hitting off a tee, or having a ball tossed softly to us in the park. There’s nothing to it. You rear back to throw. You kick as hard as you can to run. Extend your arms...
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It’s been a long wait since Lance Daly’s last film, a wonderfully sharpDublincoming of age drama called Kisses, reached our shores. Small in scale and tender, bleeding with emotion, it’s almost the opposite of its follow up, The Good Doctor. It’s very much a throwback to the cold, calculating psychological dramas of the 80s,...
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To be candid, after seeing the 2009 documentary Zombie Girl, the chronicle of a 12 year old Texas girl named Emily Hagins and her struggled to try and juggle life, middle school and directing her first feature zombie film, I never expected to hear about her again. Like the kids who made a frame-by-frame...
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In Why Stop Now, Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner’s new stoner comedy, Jesse Eisenberg plays Eli, a put upon young pianist who is about to experience the worst day of his life. For years, Eli has been the one taking care of his younger half sister, Nicole (Emma Rayne Lyle), while his wild drug...
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Disgusting. Wretched. Loathsome. Scandalous. Depraved. Nearly criminal. Yes, this film, based on a Danish sit-com of the same name, is most certainly all of those things. But it’s also one other thing: hilarious. The film concerns the emotional growth of misfit manchild Frank (Frank Hvam) during the most important week of his life. On...
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Fringe Fest 2013 reviews Arts & Culture: Our top seven picks By Jessica Bryce Young 5/22/2013
The Survivors Project News: Excerpts from ebook that gives sexual-abuse survivors a chance to tell their stories 5/22/2013
This Little Underground Music: Our live music columnist talks about a new record club and reviews Tera Melos and Blood Ceremony. By Bao Le-Huu 5/22/2013
Free Will Astrology COLUMN: By Rob Brezsny 5/22/2013
Savage Love COLUMN: Twenty-one-year-old female here. When we were both 14, my first boyfriend took advantage of me. I wanted to explore my sexuality a little, but... By Dan Savage 5/22/2013
Happytown: Is the manufacturing sales tax cut constitutional? News: Bill passed with less than 2/3 required supermajority By Billy Manes 5/22/2013