In 2008, the Drive-by Truckers weren’t exactly a band on the ropes — actually, they were on a winning streak that no other contemporary American band could touch — but they were certainly a band with something to prove. For one thing, they were…
Jerichow isn’t really an adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice, at least not any more than Transit is an adaptation of Casablanca or Undine an adaptation of The Little Mermaid. Christian Petzold doesn’t translate familiar stories to the screen so much as he…
“Fuck Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy, I know you’re young enough to be my kid but you single-handedly killed hip-hop, man. That shit is such garbage. We came all the way from Rakim, we came all the way from Das EFX, we came all the…
Given his relative renown amongst a certain type of adventurous, festival-savvy cinephile, interviews with Tsai Ming-liang tend to focus on either the ‘slowness’ of his films or their symbolic meanings. The short, behind-the-scenes documentary Sleeping on Dark Waters, released in 2008 but made from…
Vampire Weekend were anachronistic from the moment they formed: clean-cut Ivy League youths writing exceptionally clear songs, both in terms of structure and recording clarity. Their first self-titled album officially dropped January of 2008, almost exactly one year before Animal Collective’s Merriwether Post Pavilion,…
Lou Ye’s Summer Palace is an exasperating experience, full of interesting ideas and an incendiary political backdrop but falling victim to clichés of poeticized romantic longing. Though not a new idea, conflating the political and the personal can be an interesting way to explore how…
As perhaps the most narratively straightforward Hong Sang-soo film to date, albeit one still prone to a certain structural mischievousness, Woman on the Beach modulates its conceptual restraint in such a languid way as to allow its characters room to breathe. Interestingly, despite this active divergence of approach, Woman…
#30: Hearts and Glowers: A Rough Ride Through Rom-coms of No Repute Download episode here. Episode Description: Like a chance encounter with a long-forgotten lover… like a sore that came from a night of loving unwisely… like an inescapable Celine Dion song… Bad Idea Podcast is…
Few genres lend themselves as well to a specific holiday as horror does to Halloween. Not every film of the genre directly connects with the holiday (though there’s about 90 Halloween sequels to compensate), but the vibe of Halloween night, the tradition of dressing up like so…
A few weeks back we presented you with our lists of the best films of 2008, so far. Without much fanfare we now share our picks for what looks good that’s yet to be released. As it’s impossible to tell if any of these…