In Theaters:
Red Riding Trilogy
Nobody who watches the whole of the epic but troublesome murder saga Red Riding Trilogy is going be entertaining thoughts of relocating to Yorkshire in Northern England. In fact, one wonders whether the town council may be considering a defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers, if they hadn't already thought about lodging one against David Peace, who wrote the cult quartet of novels the film triptych is based on. Certainly, other regions have been made to look worse on film -- Africa, for instance. But the Red Riding films evince a particular distaste for the region, as though its creators had a kind of personal animus toward it. The happiest moments in these darker-than-dark films come in fact when its characters are contemplating leaving "the north." Of course, they rarely seem able to do so, alive or mentally intact...Red Riding Trilogy opens Friday as a (roughly) six-hour roadshow edition in limited release, check it out. Read the full review at filmcritic.com.
In Books:
Game Change
An unpleasant sensation comes across you while reading Game Change, journalist John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s breathless account of the seemingly endless 2008 election. It isn’t so much the mind-numbing cavalcade of staged events and all the back-room wheeler-dealing. The creepy-crawly feeling you get after reading about yet another s war room session where image and sell points are focus-grouped and retriangulated six ways to Sunday has more to do with this simple, plaintive question: These were the options for who we were going to choose as leader of the free world? To paraphrase Lewis Black, if this is evolution, then by 2016 we’re going to be voting for plants...Game Change is for sale pretty much everywhere. You can read the full review at PopMatters.
In Books:
Folk Photography
As a cultural phenomenon, the photo postcard was, according to Luc Sante, in its heyday from 1905 to the middle of the following decade, when the war put a crimp in things (Germany printed many of the cards and supplied much of the ink), but lasted in some form until about 1930. The cards primarily came from the middle of the country, Texas up to the Dakotas, and from a strip of country between the states of Washington and New York. The ones reproduced here are drawn from Sante’s own collection (harvested from sidewalk sales and antique-store dollar bins), and make a strong case for this format being considered its own unique form of folk art...Luc Sante's Folk Photography is available now where all finer books are sold. Or online. Read the full review at PopMatters.
In Books: Best Nonfiction of 2009
Now you can read the PopMatters take on all the best that we saw in nonfiction books last year, with an introduction by yours truly, right here.My contributions to the list include:- Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement, Leonard Zeskind
- The Death of Conservatism, Sam Tanenhaus
- The Good Soldiers, David Finkel
- The Jazz Loft Project, Sam Stephenson
In Theaters:
The Girl on the Train
Tears don't come easily to Jeanne, the young woman who Emilie Dequenne inhabits with such stolid firmness in André Téchiné's wily, windy investigation of guilt and identity, The Girl on the Train. Apparently educated and of average intelligence, Jeanne spends the early part of her second decade inhabiting her mother Louise's suburban Paris domicile, in no hurry to do anything with her life. Eventually, much like the placid pre-adolescent she is at heart, she'll fail utterly to understand that old cause and effect linkage and truly monkey-wrench a number of people's lives -- but there won't be any great moment of sadness or reflection, as that just isn't Jeanne. She would rather go rollerblading, and leave the details of life to others...The Girl on the Train opens today in limited release. Read the full review at filmcritic.com.
In Books:
Best Fiction of 2009 
Each January, the good folks at PopMatters publish an annotated list of what was really and truly outstanding in books the previous year. Right on schedule, their take on what truly stood out in the fiction category is now up for perusal here.My additions to their list include:- Blood's a Rover, James Ellroy
- The Children's Book, A.S. Byatt
- The Magicians, Lev Grossman
- Brothers, Yu Hua
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniel Mueenuddin
- Richard Yates: Everyman's Library
- Sandokan, Nanni Balestrini
Now get reading.
In Theaters:
Leap Year
A third-circle-of-hell kind of film, Leap Year would make fools of us all for thinking that a brand-name actor picture being swiftly dumped into theaters so soon after the awards season has concluded, could contain within it any redeeming qualities whatsoever. It raises questions about many things that have nothing to do with the "story" that was filmed, namely: What sort of transgressions did fine actors like Amy Adams and Matthew Goode enact in order to get themselves consigned to this punishment? Is the studio system this broken that romantic comedy scripts without a single joke or likeable character are being assigned directors and many millions of dollars for exotic overseas shoots? And how is it, exactly, that all of Ireland is blooming with spring-like color in February?...Leap Year is now playing everywhere, to our eternal regret. Read the full review at filmcritic.com.
