Reviews
Fire Island Review: A Delicious Jane Austen-Infused Rom-Com That Matches the Master’s Wit
The Pitch: Right from the jump, thanks to the voiceover of Noah (Joel Kim Booster) and a carefully planted copy of Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island tells you what it’s going to be — a retelling of the Jane Austen classic tale, relocated to a place and time that Jane Austen would have had a very hard time imagining: the titular gay party mecca centered in the hamlets of Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines. Noah and his friends (including Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, and Torian Miller) are making their annual trek to the island for a week of fun, sun, drugs, dancing, and most importantly — hooking up. But this year, things are a bit different. For one thing, their beloved adoptive mom Erin (Margaret Cho) has to sell her house on the island soon, giving this trip an air of finality. And also, Noa...
IDK and Kaytranada Keep It Simple
“Simple City” is the name locals gave to Benning Terrace, a housing project in southeast D.C. shouted out by local go-go artists and once recognized as one of the most active sites of gang violence in the country. Growing up a half-mile over the Maryland border, rapper IDK became childhood friends with a boy from the projects, and as his rap career opened up a world of new possibilities to him, he also sought to open doors for his friend. His latest project, a joint EP with DJ/producer Kaytranada, pays homage to the D.C. neighborhood and shows that life there is anything but Simple. The music video for “Taco”—the debut single off the EP—is set in Simple City and shot almost entirely in black-and-white. IDK’s outfit only adds to the contrast of the video. Looking like he didn’t change after...
Adam Sandler Opts for the Lay Up with Broad Sports Drama Hustle: Review
The Pitch: In his first major dramatic outing since 2019’s Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler returns to the arena of basketball, this time as Stanley Sugarman, a depressed but whip-smart scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. Unlike the impulsive, materialistic Howard Ratner, Sugarman is a selfless and honest working man, tirelessly trotting around the world to bring the best of the best to the NBA. Even with his passion for the game, Sugarman’s intense drive causes friction both at work and at home. His stubborn approach drives a wedge between him and his slimy boss Vin (Ben Foster) and his constant international traveling costs him quality family time with his supportive wife Teresa (Queen Latifah) and their aspiring-filmmaker daughter (Jordan Hull). On one lucky scouting trip to Spain, Sugarman comes...
Boston Calling 2022 Recap: Overcoming a Curse of Storms and Cancellations
Editor’s Note: Check out our complete coverage of Nine Inch Nails’ Friday night headlining set here, and see a photo gallery from all three days of Boston Calling 2022 here. Is the 2022 festival season cursed? With many events coming back for the first time in three years, there’s a rash of bad luck running through the landscape. From bad weather to artist cancellations to simply mediocre lineups, few events have been immune to misfortune in the early days of summer. Boston Calling was perhaps hit harder than most — by no fault of its own, mind you. If there’s one thing the annual Memorial Day Weekend event could have done to avoid being caught in this whirlwind of crappy luck it would be not announcing headliners a year in advance. Even without a pandemic, situations change, something fes...
Boston Calling 2022 Photo Gallery: Metallica, Avril Lavigne, Nine Inch Nails, & More
Despite looking nothing like the festival that was first announced back in May 2021 — or even what was detailed in January of this year — Boston Calling 2022 did indeed happen, and we have the photos to prove it. Unfortunate circumstances, positive COVID tests, and severe weather warnings meant a number of artists on the original lineup never took the stage. It also meant that Nine Inch Nails performed a rare double-header, topping both Friday and Saturday night. So the festival may not have been exactly what fans were expecting when they first bought tickets, but if you were able to look past all the unavoidable misfortunes, there was still more than enough to make for a successful Memorial Day Weekend event. With performances from Metallica, Run the Jewels, HAIM, Avril Lavigne, Weezer, M...
Norm Macdonald’s Posthumous Nothing Special Is Unlike Any Other Comedy Performance — Review
It’s hard to imagine a comedy set like Norm Macdonald’s latest and last. Nothing Special, a title that manages the Norm-like feat of simultaneous irony and honesty, was recorded at Macdonald’s home, without an audience, during the pre-vaccine pandemic days of 2020. It’s performed in the style of a webcast; MacDonald has a microphone, but he’s sitting down, focusing mostly on his face, as if Zooming into his own special. The press materials boast that it was done in “one take,” which is both impressive, in that Macdonald appears to do 55 minutes of comedy more or less extemporaneously without any breaks for laughs, and obvious, in that he’s occasionally interrupted, by a ringing phone or a barking dog. The comic had been preparing material for his next Netflix special, but, as very few peop...
Metallica Take Over Napa Valley with BottleRock Set and Late-Night Covers Show: Recap, Photos + Video
Napa, California’s BottleRock Festival finally returned after a two-year absence this weekend, and with Metallica headlining day one on Friday (May 27th), it got off to head-banging start. As they usually do, the legendary metal band made the show an event for their fans, making sure that they would have maximum Metallica intake. One of the bands that performed prior to Metallica’s headlining set was Bastardane, a hard-rock trio that includes James Hefield’s son Castor on drums. Although the band has a thrash metal influence, they have their own unique sound that seemed to get a seal of approval from the Metallica fans watching the show. Also approving was James himself, who could be seen behind the wings of the stage watching and nodding along, but soon he would be on a much bigger stage....
Boston Calling 2022: Nine Inch Nails Deliver Blistering Headline Set in Place of Foo Fighters: Recap, Photos + Setlist
For the second time in a week, Nine Inch Nails played a festival headline slot that was initially intended for Foo Fighters. At both last weekend’s Welcome to Rockville and Friday’s Boston Calling kick off, Trent Reznor and co. served as last-minute replacements after the tragic loss of Foo drummer Taylor Hawkins. Festivals being forced to find fill-ins for canceled acts isn’t the rarest of things, but the circumstances around NIN adding these dates to their first tour in four years comes from uniquely sad circumstances. About an hour into their Boston Calling set, Reznor addressed the situation in a heartfelt statement from the stage. “We’re very happy to be here with you tonight and share this time with you,” he said. “And we’re very sorry for the conditions that led to us being here, wi...
David Cronenberg Plays the Fleshy Hits in the Evocative, Squicky Crimes of the Future: Review
The Pitch: In a near-future world where pollution and technological advancement have led human beings to develop “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome” (i.e. the spontaneous development of new organs and bodily configurations), bodily modifications are the norm and pain is virtually a thing of the past. Save, it seems, for Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), a celebrity performance artist whose gimmick is tattooing, then surgically (and publicly) removing, the new organs his body generates in elaborate showcases with his creative partner/probably-lover Caprise (Léa Seydoux). He lives a life of constant pain, one which no number of bio-technological devices — floating orchid-like beds that attach fleshy tentacles to his limbs, living high chairs that rock him as he eats breakfast so he can keep h...
Love, Death, and Robots: The 15 Best Sci-Fi Shorts, Ranked
Netflix’s flagship animated anthology series Love, Death & Robots has often been a hard show to love. On the one hand, it’s a dazzling showcase for VFX artists at the top of their field, adapting some of science fiction’s most interesting short stories to a new medium (not unlike the Heavy Metal comics from which executive producers David Fincher and Tim Miller derived the premise). On the other, that same love of Heavy Metal extends to the exploitativeness of many of its stories — especially in its first season, which never met a woman it didn’t like to punish, hypersexualize, or exploit for gut-wrenching violence. Still, despite the Reddit-iness of it all, there are still quite a few gems to be found amongst the Call of Duty commercials and Starcraft cutscenes, especia...
Slipknot Crush Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for First NYC Show in 13 Years: Recap, Photos + Video
There’s a certain poignancy to Slipknot’s choice of pre-show piped-in track: AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).” That song was the emotional core of School of Rock for a reason. Amid the boredom and frustration and anxiety of daily life, it’s a sacred activity to transcend the B.S. with a healthy dose of heavy metal. And that’s exactly what thousands of dyed-hair suburban kids, up-for-anything parents and metal-loving weekend warriors did, packed into Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on the evening of May 20th. The mortar fire in the AC/DC tune gave way to actual pyrotechnics — to cheers. In an ironic twist, the track segued into country star Billie Jo Spears’ 1968 recording “Get Behind Me Satan and Push” — which locked onto the name “Satan” and seemed to melt. Devil’s...
Stranger Things Stretches Out the Upside Down For an Endearingly Familiar Season 4: Review
The Pitch: While it’s been three years (and an entire pandemic) since we last saw Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), and the rest of the denizens of Hawking, Indiana in the third season of Stranger Things, for them it’s only been six months. The Battle of Starcourt Mall kicked off a host of changes for our heroes, both young and old, with Eleven choosing to move to California with the Byerses, leaving Mike, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and the others to struggle with the cliques and clashes of high school on their own. And growing up is hard, even for Demogorgon slayers — Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) has joined the basketball team in an attempt to shake off the nerd cred Mike and Dustin cling to, while Max (Sadie Sink) is still mourning the death of brother Billy last se...
