April Wolfe

Speak now or forever hold your peace.; Credit: Courtesy of Bleecker Street

Viggo Mortensen Is a Flower-Power Survivalist in Captain Fantastic

Don’t let the publicity photos of the ensemble cast clad in ’70s-era tuxes and flower-child dresses, or even the cloying Mumford-mimicking soundtrack on the trailer, fool you: Captain Fantastic ain’t some twee, cutesy Wes Anderson romp or a Little Miss Sunshine knockoff. This dramedy marking the feature debut of longtime......
Credit: Courtesy of Music Box Films

Anne Fontaine's The Innocents Finds Strength in Grayness

If there’s a war movie we haven’t seen enough of yet, it’s one from the female perspective, one that further obscures who the good guys and bad guys really are. In Anne Fontaine’s moody feature The Innocents, even the nuns are gray. During a bitterly cold winter, tucked away in......
Justin Chon and Jessika Van

Finally, a John Hughes-Style Teen Flick for Korean-American Kids

Director Benson Lee (Miss Monday) and actors Justin Chon (Twilight) and Jessika Van (Awkward) sit down at the round table in Koreatown’s Ahgassi Gopchang, what Chon calls an “authentic” Korean restaurant. “Having this barbecue in the middle of the table with this vacuum, it’s Korean style,” Lee says. “It’s hard......
Vivica A. Fox; Credit: Photo by D'Andre Michael

How Vivica A. Fox Defied Hollywood's Odds

Throngs of women in their best walking shoes, wallets at the ready, weave their way into the airy atrium of the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Ultimate Women's Expo, a chaotic carnival of consumerist girl power. Vendors hawk their wares from hundreds of booths, demonstrating contour makeup techniques and......
A corpse only a mother could love; Credit: Courtesy of A24

Swiss Army Man Has Wonder but Too Much Farty Dada

People made a stink about the walkouts during the Sundance premiere of music-video-and-advertising geniuses the Daniels’ first feature film, Swiss Army Man. It stars Daniel Radcliffe (Manny) as a farting, rotting corpse with superpowers and Paul Dano (Hank) as a sad-sack suicidal stalker trying to get home through a forest......
Boy's best friend; Credit: Courtesy of Amazon Studios and IFC Films

Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog Embarks on a Satiric Odyssey

A wiener dog is the perfect mascot for Todd Solondz’s films. Dachshunds are ridiculous, funny without trying, but that zero-dignity waddle belies a much fiercer purpose: to hunt and kill small prey. Solondz’s body of work, stretching from coming-of-age cringefest Welcome to the Dollhouse to his newest, Wiener-Dog, has the......
One of the tamer scenes in Tickled; Credit: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Bonkers New Doc Tickled Digs Into the Strangest of Cover-Ups

In a stark white room, four boys huddle on a mattress, addressing the camera. They’re athletic, the picture of youth and every Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. A blond boy says, “We want to thank Jane O’Brien Media for this opportunity,” and they all smile and wave. They’re about to take......