Entertainment 505 results

Movies, music and popular culture reports from Ex-Press staff

4Score

Deadpool reanimates comic book form

Movie review: Deadpool Ryan Reynolds's physical skills and comic timing prove unbeatable as he takes on the role of a nihilist antihero in Deadpool, a self-conscious wink to Spandex form that would have been unwatchable without him
3.5Score

Movie review: Hail, Caesar! salutes Hollywood kitsch

The new Coen brothers movie is an homage — or maybe just a bunch of references — to a golden age of movies that captures the energy of an era without having much of a point
3Score

Homelessness pulls up to the curb

Movie review: The Lady in the Van Maggie Smith stars as a woman who makes her home in a rusty van parked outside the house of an uptight playwright named Alan Bennett in this story about finding safe harbor  

Getting lost in The Valley of the Dolls

Podcast: Pop This! Jacqueline Susann revolutionized the female coming-of-age story with her melodrama about three women trying to make their way in show business, and 50 years hence, Valley of the Dolls remains a great place to pitch camp Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin. A sampling of what you might hear in Episode 13: Valley of the Dolls Quinoa fatigue. I don’t care about quinoa in the same way I don’t care about space. What I liked most about the hotel sex is the bright blue towel. It’s the most amazing blue towel. If you were going to watch this just for the set-dec and the linens… do it. Every couch pattern is amazing. It’s a movie of scenes and lines. The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that’s me baby! If you think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is vicious... That hurt my feelings and I’m not even on screen. Gender politics...  we have not resolved that one. The ...
4Score

45 Years a devastating drama

Movie review: 45 Years Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play a married couple who uncover a long-buried secret that changes everything they think about their marriage in this devastating British drama      

The Hollars cried out for Krasinski

Film: Sundance Film Festival The veteran star of The Office says becoming a father brought new meaning to Jim Strouse's tragic-comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to connect By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — The closing night moment bordered on awkward. Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper celebrated the fact he wouldn’t have to introduce any more films at this year’s festival, and in the next breath, introduced the world premiere of John Krasinksi’s The Hollars. The veteran star of The Office and Michael Bay’s 13 Hours looked a little surprised at the suggestion of duress, but took it all in stride as he thanked Sundance for the incredible privilege of unveiling his sophomore effort on Sundance’s final night of premieres. “Sundance was always the goal,” said Krasinski to a sold-out crowd at Park City's Eccles theatre Friday.  Originally attached to the script as the star, Krasinski said he took on actor-director duties because he was ...

Pop This! Patti Smith’s M Train

Podcast: Pop This! The pop culture savants are bowled over with emotion as they crack the spine of Patti Smith's latest book about 'grief, coffee and travel' in their first-ever book club episode  
3Score

The Finest Hours survives a perfect storm of flaws

Movie review: The Finest Hours The story of a split oil tanker off the Massachusetts coastline looks fantastic but leaves a slick of limp scenes and dramatic debris floating in its wake  

Audrie and Daisy and Rehtaeh and Amanda

Film: Sundance Film Festival Audrie & Daisy breaks down the door of teen secrecy to expose flaws in a legal system that allows for social media bullying in the wake of sexual assault By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — The movie is called Audrie & Daisy, but it could just as easily have been called Amanda Todd and Rehtaeh Parsons because the stories are so similar: A young woman is sexually exploited, then shamed and harassed on social media to the point where she feels she has no option but to take her own life. It’s become a tragic fact of modern puberty, and as Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s (The Island President) new documentary makes abundantly clear, there are no easy answers to a problem that requires wholesale change to both the legal system and the secret social world of teens. “You think you’re having the conversation with your kids, but there’s so much more to say… which is why I am so grateful for this film,” said Cohen after the film’s ...

Sundance Critic’s Notebook

Film: Sundance Capsule Reviews Keeping it in the Family Norman Lear: Another Version of You (Directed by Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing. Featuring Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Mel Brooks) Norman Lear revolutionized the small screen by creating characters such as Archie Bunker, Maude and the Jeffersons, but as this sweet documentary portrait makes abundantly clear, he was also a true Mensch. Constantly striving to make the world a better place by forcing his fellow citizens to face intolerance and prejudice through narrative, Lear found the fussy fulcrum between entertainment and enlightenment. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s (Jesus Camp, Detropia) opening night feature doesn’t reinvent any wheels of form as it relates the story of Lear’s fascinating life, but it does try some different techniques, such as archival projections over re-enacted moments, and the irritating use of a young actor to play Lear’s inner child and former self. Because Lear is such a grand ...