Who or what is the MVP of "Sing Street"?

Sing Street, the latest film from our most musician obsessed auteur John Carney, has been expanding with more theaters each week at a fairly strong clip. Six weeks in, there's no expansion (a very crowded weekend) but its fanbase keeps growing exponentially as more people "discover" it. Like Carney's previous music-based indies, the Oscar winning, transcendently low-fi Once and the more mainstream but surprisingly rewatchable Begin Again, whatever you might want to say about Sing Street an adjective that could safely and accurately describe all three films is "endearing"...

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Happy Birthday Grace Jones

Kieran, here wishing the happiest of birthdays to one of our most talented, specific, peculiar and mysterious pop culture icons--the great Grace Jones.

There are countless pop music mainstays today who owe a great debt to the trails blazed by Grace Jones and many have gone to great pains to cite her as a predecessor. Her signature, striking style, her unique music, her fascinating, inimitable look are incredibly influential. Make no mistake--a lot of your favs (and I take nothing away from them by saying this for it's the best artist that borrow from other artists) can be traced back to Grace Jones.

Jones has made forrays into film here and there, though she's arguably most known for her appearances in Boomerang where her character brashly declared...

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FYC: Kate Dickie and the Raw Emotion of "The Witch"

Out this week on blu-ray/dvd is Robert Eggers's The Witch. Warmly received by critics, but divisive for general audiences, the film is a marvel of craft and inescapable dread. But the film is more than its horror elements and immaculate period detail - at the center is a potent family tragedy as well-developed as any drama you'll seen this year. And the bruised soul of that tragedy is actress Kate Dickie.

Dickie stars as the matriarch of a Puritan family banished from their New England settlement in the 17th century. Her Katherine begins the film essentially wordless during the excommunication, then is defined by her off-screen sobs after the film's first punishments. Once Katherine collects herself, she quickly reveals herself to be a devout believer firmly planted in her role as wife and mother. As things quickly turn from bad to worse, her agony surges with authentic depth until she becomes willingly deluded by her own suffering.

Dickie's portrayal is a prime example of The Witch offering more than its horror contemporaries...

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Throwback Fun: Favorites of 1994?

Tuesday's revisit to the essential and apparently sorely underseen Queen Margot (1994) and the comments thereafter had me thinking about favorite films from 1994. This website wasn't around back then of course (I think the internet was just in listserv mode at that point?) but I was already making lists. So what would I have nominated had our Film Bitch Awards been around back then? What would you have nominated had you had an Oscar ballot?

The answers (fluid as they are should rewatching ever occur) are after the jump...

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Cannes Cannes Cannes

With this many filmmakers, photographers and journalists in one place, interesting moments are bound to happen and be reported on. Here’s Murtada with a few after the jump...

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