The new documentary, ‘Amy,’ attempts to use archival footage, interviews, and performance highlights to better understand the woman behind the lyrics. Unfortunately, director Asif Kapadia’s kitchen-sink approach isn’t suited for such a complicated subject. In the end, what should have been a celebration of Winehouse’s unique talent becomes a cliché-ridden obsession to explain her downfall.
Backstreet Boys: Show em’ What You’re Made of
Directed by Stephen Kijak
USA, 2015
At the height of their face The Backstreet Boys represented with their harmonious voices and cherub good looks a newfound idealism in the American landscape. Not without talent, their selling point as much their image as their sound: they were chosen to be branded. Offering context to the tumultuous early years and how their experienced shaped their identity and worth over the years, the new documentary Backstreet Boys: Show em’ What You’re Made of documents the production of a new album from the former boy group.
Wild is a mildly-satisfying travelogue through one woman’s troubled life that never quite delivers the catharsis it promises. Reese Witherspoon gives a brave, physically-demanding performance, despite her character’s unconvincing psychological transformation. Director Jean-Marc Vallée deftly intertwines our hero’s tragic past with her epic hike along the Pacific coast, but neither informs one another on an emotional level. The result is a beautiful looking film that feels lonelier than a desolate mountain pass.
Before I Disappear Written and directed by Shawn Christensen USA/UK, 2014 We don’t get many cinematic one-man shows these days. Shawn Christensen takes up the challenge by writing, directing and starring in the new indie mind-screw, Before I Disappear. Though thin on plot and heavy on convulsions, there’s enough visual flair and wickedly-dark humor to …
COUCH TAG by Jesse Reklaw [Fantagraphics] Couch Tag is a new graphic memoir from the artist Jesse Reklaw, his first. While this may be Jesse’s debut in this format, this is hardly his first contribution to the world of comics. Jesse has been drawing and self-publishing comics for several decades. His strip, Slow Wave, in …
There have been some excellent episodes of Mad Men this season. “The Flood,” “Man with a Plan,” and especially “For Immediate Release” have all been varying degrees of great, but “The Crash” is the first episode to leave me dumbstruck with awe the way so many season five episodes did. It’s an episode in which every scene seems precisely crafted to achieve an effect. What is that effect?
Cult Cinema: Volume 12 It’s tough to be straight-edge. By virtue of being drug- and alcohol-free, the whole world thinks you’re some Christian hardcore kid from Boston who only speaks in Minor Threat lyrics. But on the other hand, you do get to picture the whole world as some sort of decadent, liverish imbecile, lounging …
As part of the viral campaign, Fight Smack in the Orphanage, public service announcement has Bullhorn (Byron Minns) show how one can prevent the use of smack on the streets.
Cult Cinema: Volume 12 It’s tough to be straight-edge. By virtue of being drug- and alcohol-free, the whole world thinks you’re some Christian hardcore kid from Boston who only speaks in Minor Threat lyrics. But on the other hand, you do get to picture the whole world as some sort of decadent, liverish imbecile, lounging …