‘The Serpent’s Egg’ Marks One of Ingmar Bergman’s Strangest Efforts
By the time he had landed his first big-budgeted project, Sweden’s Ingmar Bergman had earned
View Article‘Camille Claudel’ Features an Electrifying Performance by Isabelle Adjani
Already an Oscar-nominee by the time the ’80s rolled around, French actress Isabelle Adjani would
View ArticleAll That Jazz and Then Some: An Interview with Defunkt’s Joseph Bowie
Defunkt's music is constructed with the intricacies of jazz, charged with the muscular pump of rock, and executed with punk's ferocity. Frontman Joseph Bowie talks about the band's long, colourful, and...
View ArticleFleetwood Dissects the European Mindset in His Moody, Disturbing Thriller, ‘A...
Specializing in the kind of thrillers that explore the interstitial spaces that are moral dilemmas,
View ArticleChewing the Fat: Rapper Fat Tony on His Latest Work From Hip-hop’s Leftfield
Creeping in around the margins of hip-hop’s mainstream, though firmly situated on its flood banks,
View ArticleMaestro Gamin and Aeks’ Latest EP Delivers LA Hip-Hop Cool (premiere +...
Having worked under the radar for the last 12 years of his career may not
View ArticleHip-Hop’s Raashan Ahmad Talks About His Place in ‘The Sun’
In his latest work The Sun, rapper Raashan Ahmad brings his irrepressible charisma to this set of Afrobeat-influenced hip-hop.
View ArticleL’Orange and Solemn Brigham Bring Dissentient Experiments and Dangerous...
In just under ten years, music producer L’Orange has managed to make a much sought-after
View ArticleHip-Hop Since the Don of Rhyme: Shabazz Palaces’‘The Don of Diamond Dreams’
With the release of Shabazz Palaces' The Don of Diamond Dreams, producer-rapper Ishmael Butler envisions yet another lunar world of sound disturbed by his anxieties and desires.
View ArticleShabazz Palaces Bring the Funk on “Bad Bitch Walking” (premiere)
Shabazz Palaces releases “Bad Bitch Walking”, the third official single from The Don of Diamond
View ArticleLove and Cinema: The Ruinous Lives in Żuławski’s L’important c’est d’aimer
Exiled by his native Poland after his contentious films caused many clashes with the Polish
View ArticleIller Instinct: An Interview with Hip-Hop Artists Ill Scholars
The two first met at a Roots show and in no time did they begin
View ArticleAuthor Gabriel Bump Advises Young Writers to ‘Embrace the Sluggishness’
Gabriel Bump‘s Everywhere You Don’t Belong, a sharply-observed work of fiction, signals the arrival of
View ArticleJoBoxers Frontman, Actor, and Poet Dig Wayne Walks to a Boxerbeat
Whether a spry youth thrashing about in punk clubs, a writer publishing poetry, or an actor appearing on police procedurals, JoBoxers frontman Dig Wayne's life has spanned a full artist's spectrum.
View ArticleChabrol Dives into Time-Warping Fantasy with ‘Alice ou la dernière fugue’
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the base to Claude Chabrol's essay of a woman's metaphysical journey into fear in fantasy-themed Alice ou la dernière fugue.
View Article‘Claudine’ Is a Sweetly Embroidered Drama of Class Struggle
Claudine, marketed as an urban drama but really just a love story like any other,
View ArticleA Music of Words: Interview with Author Wesley Brown
Black American author Wesley Brown's prose is assembled like notes on sheet music, his political assertions the staves that backdrop the story.
View ArticleAn Interview with The London Souls’ Tash Neal on His Solo Debut ‘Charge It to...
The London Souls' Tash Neal talks with PopMatters about his solo career, the funk and soul influences in his fiery rock music, and moving beyond the trauma of his life-altering accident.
View ArticleThe One Life of Two Women in Jacques Rivette’s ‘Céline and Julie Go Boating’
Céline and Julie Go Boating transcends its mystic device of hijacked cinéma verité to present an authentic idea of truth in the contrived world of celluloid.
View ArticlePunk Rabble-Rousers the OBGMs Kick Out the Jams on ‘The Ends’
The OBGMs generate a sound that's altogether brutal, sensual, raucous, and hungry on The Ends. It's been long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize.
View ArticleMike Ladd and Remi Rough Unite on ‘The Dead Can Rap’
Mike Ladd with producer Rough pulls up a wealth of succulent groove on The Dead Can Rap, nudging the think tank of his polemic poetry onto the dancefloor.
View ArticleJohn Edgar Wideman’s Short Story Collection ‘You Made Me Love You’ Challenges...
John Edgar Wideman's You Made Me Love You features an array of impressive, thought-provoking stories of considerable depth.
View ArticleJacques Deray’s Drama ‘La Piscine’ Is Hypnotic and Quietly Ruthless
Sultry, hypnotic, and quietly ruthless, Jacques Deray’s La Piscine is a slow-burner rife with impossible beauty and turbulent emotion.
View ArticleUnderground Hip-Hoppers Blu, Mickey Factz, Nottz “Stay Down”
"Stay Down" is an unfussy, short but sweet delight, in which Blu trades his conversational rhymes with the ruminative verses of Mickey Factz.
View ArticleMichael J. Sheehy Says “Everything That Rises Must Converge”
Michael J. Sheehy sings of transcendence and resolve and, driven by a poignancy that can only be of the preserve of songwriters everywhere.
View ArticleBuffalo Nichols Impresses Mightily with His Folk Blues on “How to Love”
Plucking chords with steel-tipped determination, Buffalo Nichols brandishes his songs with the worn sentimentality that has had many scarred souls in lonely bars crying into their beers.
View ArticleFilmmaker Melvin Van Peebles Cast His Stylistic Net Wide in His...
For Melvin Van Peebles good cheer and cool heads prevail against the tirade of ill-will and malevolence. His wide-ranging filmmaking style conveys that overarching sentiment.
View ArticleUK MC Figure of Speech on His Anti-Racist Hip-Hop Album
UK MC Figure of Speech talks about his debut album, a judicious bridging between current affairs and the socially-conscious erudition of hip-hop's early days.
View ArticleAstrid Williamson Moves Mountains and a Few Souls with ‘Into the Mountain’
Astrid Williamson's songwriting prowess as both a classically trained artist and an alternative rock maven makes the earth tremble on Into the Mountain.
View ArticleTheodore Witcher’s Paean to Hip-Hop ‘Love Jones’ Charms and Seduces
In 1997, you could call Love Jones a small, curious drama that won many critics over. Today, it stands as a cornerstone of Black narrative in cinema.
View ArticleCriminal Subterfuge and Dark Desires in Chabrol’s Minimalist Murder-Mysteries
While murder and crime certainly run deep in Claude Chabrol’s world of subterfuge, the dark desires of human nature that provoke them run immeasurably deeper.
View ArticleLove in a Void: Romance and Fear in the Songs of New Wave’s Romeo Void
San Francisco's new wave band Romeo Void exists in a curious interstice between the social context of the early ‘80s while being wholly prescient of our era of #MeToo.
View ArticleBig Dada Kane: An Interview with Poet-Rapper Malik Ameer Crumpler
Bestriding boundaries between hip-hop, poetry, and surrealism, poet-musician Malik Ameer Crumpler forges a strange and compelling work that is utterly and uniquely his own.
View Article‘Shaft’ Helped Create the Archetype Black Action Hero of the 1970s
Gordon Parks’ classic blaxploitation film Shaft presents Richard Roundtree as a swaggering, controversial action hero in gritty, early ’70s New York.
View ArticleGoya Dress’ Dramatic Music Evokes Vivid Classic Imagery
Three-piece UK band Goya Dress specialized in stylishly baroque Sturm und Drang rock; dizzying Märchens sated with the drama of a Francisco Goya painting.
View ArticleGlitch-Hop Pioneer Thavius Beck on the Beats and the Love That Inspired ‘LEO’
Glitch-hop pioneer Thavius Beck talks about Public Enemy, the Bomb Squad, and LEO, an album heavy with his baritone boom and pumping, catawampus beats.
View ArticleWhen 1980s Music Drama ‘Times Square’ Tried to Capture NYC Punk
It was not without admirable aplomb that Times Square attempted to capture the punk movement in its zeitgeist the way Saturday Night Fever did with disco.
View ArticleVanessa Daou’s Galactic Dance Gem, ‘Plutonium Glow’
The retro-electro feel of Vanessa Daou's 1998 'Plutonium Glow' is influenced by ‘90s rave culture, which pushes Daou's usual bedroom listeners onto the dance floor.
View Article‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ Is Among Neo-Noir’s Finest Films
Denzel Washington's voiceover in neo-noir Devil in a Blue Dress is an equal mix of deadpan charm and wide-eyed innocence, which textures and nuances his performance.
View Article‘Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands’ Is a Spicy Brazilian Cinema Classic
Bruno Barreto’s romantic charmer Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is rich with sensuous detail that fills every scene with dizzying amounts of culture, music, and atmosphere.
View ArticleRock ‘n’ Stroll: Robert Cray’s Blues Stormer ‘Midnight Stroll’
Robert Cray plays subtly with basic blues convention on Midnight Stroll, turning it into a brand-new face for listeners who have heard it all before.
View ArticleEnigmatic and Emotional ‘Three Colors’ Is a Hypnotic Triptych of Polish Cinema
Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors – Blue, White, and Red – are grand reminders of the little motions that gather slowly but surely, to deliver the quick, sudden turns that give even the most indolent...
View ArticleEkiti Sound Premieres the Sensuously-Charged “aLAcarte pt. 2”
"aLAcarte pt. 2" offers another sweet slice of Ekiti Sound's culturally-spiced pie. It's a sensuously shuddering, percussive jam that is as minimal as deep.
View ArticleParker Posey’s Character in ‘Party Girl’ Is Almost Mythic
Parker Posey’s performance in Party Girl – a parodic gesture that sweeps the frames in wide, showy arcs – is pure, sparkling kitsch delivered in champagne coupes.
View ArticleDirk Bogarde Disturbs and Fascinates in ‘The Servant’
Once possessing a genially handsome face, Dirk Bogarde cut a daring figure in The Servant's darker material, which readily accommodated his increasingly aged and weathered looks.
View ArticleYuppies, Punks and Sociopaths Congregate in Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’
In After Hours, Scorsese's camera wanders through a tableau of living and breathing graffiti incarnated as '80s New York City’s most dangerous bottom-feeders.
View Article‘Chameleon Street’ Pushes the Limits of Independent Cinema
Chameleon Street has a finger on the throbbing pulse of shifting cultures that see youth through punk, new wave, and hip-hop.
View ArticleWith ‘The Fatalist’, Buffalo Nichols Returns Like a Vengeful Ghost
Building on his 2021 debut, with newly released The Fatalist, Buffalo Nichols looks to be a 21st century Delta king cut from the tattered soul-cloth of Robert Johnson.
View ArticleThe 20 Best DVDs of 2023
In our Best DVDs of 2023 list, along with some classic television, we have selected known treasures and unconventional films to satisfy the discerning cinephile.
View Article‘La Cérémonie’ Explores Social Class Struggles with Chilling Exactitude
Filmed under a cool glass of calm and enwrapped in an airy atmosphere, La Cérémonie makes judicious use of its setting to starkly contrast its warring classes.
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