We begin this week's Voice Film Club podcast with a strange story about Giles Corey, who famously said, "More weight!" as stones were laid upon him during his witch trial. The end of the year is sort of like that for film critics, who are pressed upo...
Sony's official announcement that the studio will no longer release Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's North Korean comedy The Interview closes with the line, "We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression." So what's it like when they d...
Once again, we're gathering around the radio digital music playback device. It was inevitable, wasn't it? If you've been listening to Serial, the insanely popular podcast from Chicago's public radio station, WBEZ , then you know today is the final...
The Interview: The interview Update: Sony Pictures has now canceled the release of The Interview entirely. A statement from the studio is below, at the end of this post. Original Post: Tuesday, December 16, brought news that Seth Rogen, co-wri...
Here are movie moments from 2014 I'll never forget: Gugu Mbatha-Raw's sad pop tart smacking her ass in Beyond the Lights, the sickroom choked with flowers in Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo, Oscar Isaac and Kirsten Dunst's Greek island all-nighter in The...
While the New York Police Department battles its growing, and vocal, critic base, a group of NYPD supporters have spent the last several days trying to make the hashtag #bluelivesmatter a thing. Well, they've definitely succeeded. Because it's a thin...
A demonstrator at the Millions March on December 13 The call to release testimony heard by the Staten Island grand jury that cleared Daniel Pantaleo got a big boost last week, when Public Advocate Letitia James and two legal advocacy groups applie...
Police officers wield batons as activists protest the lack of indictment after Eric Garner's death. Despite significant backlash from online activists, organizers of a pro-police rally at City Hall want you to know that they will not be canceling...
"If everything were great, nothing would be great." That line, from Scott Coffey's smart and sweetly entertaining Adult World, is one of my favorite bits of movie dialogue this year, not least because it's applicable to every movie genre -- actually...
Welcome to New York. Summer tourist season, thankfully, ended months ago. But the holiday season is now in full swing, bringing with it swarms of slow-walkers and gawkers who are descending upon the city daily. They're here to take cheerful selfie...
The website of the New York City mayor's office contains a feature called "10 Ways to Be a Better Dad." It's part of a campaign, called NYC Dads, that seeks to help fathers get tips on being a more present parent. Well, it was.Back in early November...
As with everything else in this city, the field of awful landlords is a crowded one. Dirty, crumbling, roach-ridden apartments are a dime a dozen -- to stand out from the pack, a landlord must up his or her game to truly horrifying heights. Hostility...
Yonathan Souid in France in happier times The Brooklyn District Attorney's office was not thrilled with Yonathan Souid when he became the fourth person to climb the Brooklyn Bridge in the span of a few months. On November 16, the French tourist ha...
Erica Garner adjusts a rose on the memorial for her father, Eric. Over the last two weeks, New Yorkers have disrupted commuters at Grand Central Terminal, snarled traffic on the city's streets and bridges, and occupied a handful of Manhattan's maj...
Police officers in Times Square hold zip ties for handcuffing protesters. After weeks of anti-police protests, advocates for the New York Police Department are planning a rally to show their support for the NYPD, which has come under fire in the w...
Last year, eyewitnesses were certain that 16-year-old Kimani Gray was unarmed when two plainclothes officers shot him seven times in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. But the officers alleged that Gray pointed a .38-caliber Rohm's industry revolver at them. ...
SantaCon may have degenerated from performance art to wasted merry mob, but organizers pledged Wednesday to rescue the notorious bar crawl from infamy and turn it into an official parade. "Santa" (New York SantaCon's anonymous organizer) has hired f...
New Freedom of Information Law directives have curtained the public's only window into police discipline. An obscure legal determination has gone a long way toward making New York's police discipline process even less transparent. It's a highly te...
American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny by Christopher Miller (Harper, 530 pages) From this daft, delightful, utterly singular, bathroom-browsable reference work's entry on "grawlixes," those eruptions of punctuation marks as swea...
Chris Rock in Top Five We begin this week's Voice Film Club podcast with a Thomas Pynchon story, before hosts Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice, and Amy Nicholson of LA Weekly, move on to Paul Thomas Anderson's movie adap...