Now that it’s spent months on the awards circuit, the same Blue Valentine stories abound: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams lived in their married characters’ onscreen house for a month, celebrating holidays and buying groceries on a strict budget; Gosling, a Method actor, wanted to wait the story’s six years between settings to film; it […]
Tara Thorne
Posted inArts + Music
Critics’ Picks 2010: music
Aloe Blacc, Good Things (Stones Throw) Apollo Ghosts, Mount Benson (independent) It’s criminal to have so many equally passionate and comical pop songs squeezed into 25 minutes, so I plug in my air guitar and press repeat. –RH Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (Merge) Mature and grown-up without losing their trademark energy, Arcade Fire take on […]
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No rhythm for Black Swan
The plot of Darren Aronofosky’sBlack Swan is similar to that of his elegiac The Wrestler: talented athlete faces greatest challenge despite obstacles, namely self. Which is basically the plot of any Disney movie, and perhaps if Black Swan were animated, it might not come off so ludicrously. Natalie Portman is Nina, a prudish ballerina under […]
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My Chemical Romance
The subtitle to My Chem’s newest concept album is The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, about a team of somethings saving something from the apocalypse, maybe? There are a lot of laser synths—way too many—to indicate when we’re inside the Killjoys story, but the band would’ve been better off abandoning such high-octane grandiosity for […]
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Private for your eyes
In September of 2009, Robin Wright sat stoically at a table, next to writer-director Rebecca Miller and her co-star Keanu Reeves. There in Toronto to discuss Miller’s third film, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, the actor was quiet, unsmiling and still, until she was asked a question. She thought, considered, then exploded into an […]
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Taylor Swift
For all the brouhaha about the subjects of Taylor Swift’s new album—John Mayer! Joe Jonas (still)! Kanye West!—not enough has been made of what a spectacular package of pop hooks Speak Now is. The first single, “Mine,” is a classic Swift love story, so catchy you may miss the deftness of a line like “You […]
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Harmer time
The break was initiated by guilt. “I did a kind of crazy and exhausting UK tour,” says Sarah Harmer, calling from her Kingston kitchen just before lunch to report on her four-year absence from our collective consciousness. “I read the book Heat by George Monbiot, and it was all about how to stop the planet […]
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Learning with It’s Kind of a Funny Story
The writing and directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck swings for the mainstream fences with a setting—a mental ward—that sounds more suited to its first film, Half Nelson. But it’s actually an earnest coming-of-age story toeing the saucy-sweet Juno line, including animated sequences, copious indie rock, cable-minted stars and a fantasy dance number. […]
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Torche extinguished at HPX
Sorry to be the bad-news bearer (yep, that’s TWO torch puns in less than 20 words) but Miami’s Torche, whose new record Songs for Singles has been getting great notices, has had to cancel its Paragon appearance tonight. Locals Broken Ohms will round out the lineup, which includes High on Fire and Kylesa. The Halifax […]
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It’s Kind of a Funny Story sweetens the plot
The writing and directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck announced itself as one of consequence with Half Nelson, the 2006 drama that introduced Shareeka Epps and produced an Academy Award nomination for Ryan Gosling and his portrayal of a crack-addicted teacher. It was followed by the well-received Sugar, the star-free story of a […]
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Don’t spoil Catfish
Yaniv Schulman is a photographer. His brother Ariel is a filmmaker. Abby is an eight-year-old from Michigan who sends Yaniv beautiful paintings of his photos. Megan is her half-sister, with whom Yaniv strikes up a virtual, romantic relationship. Ariel films it all. As the brothers head to Michigan so that Yaniv and Megan can finally […]
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Brandon Flowers
When bandleaders go solo, the results are invariably similar, even when the leaders insist it’s different (Matthew Good, Dave Matthews, Gwen Stefani). But so what, when they’re packaged in a tacklebox full of hooks? Flowers treads familiar Killers ground here, to the point where the chorus for “Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts” is a reshash […]
