Reviews

Neon Spring Review

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“Neon Spring” is a coming-of-age film that follows Laine, played by Marija Luize Melk, a 20-year-old college student who is exploring the world of sex, drugs, and parties. These exuberant, excitement-filled nights are coupled with her “day” life. Her family is facing interpersonal problems, and she is searching to find her footing within the world…. Read more »

Woman in city.

The Life, the Light, and the Shadows: The Stroll

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The world premiere of “The Stroll,” a documentary from directors Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker (“Transparent,” “The Lady and the Dale,” “Framing Agnes”) at the Sundance 2023 Film Festival offered festival goers an unforgettable experience of walking through New York City as way to acknowledge the trans experience over the last three decades of the… Read more »

Magic Mike’s Last Dance Review

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Disclaimer: I have not seen the first or second installment of “Magic Mike,” but it was a Thursday night, the boy who flew across the country to visit me was with his friend in Maine, and I had nothing else to do, therefore I had nothing left to lose.  “To bridge people together from different… Read more »

Black girl at ballet class.

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema March 2-12

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Film for film, performance for performance, there’s no more pleasurable way for cinephiles to weather a Manhattan winter than to rendez-vous for ten days and nights in early March on West 65th Street. Audiences at the Walter Reade and Munroe theaters are civilized and mostly masked, there’s popcorn but the carpeting’s never sticky, no one… Read more »

Riotsville U.S.A. Comes to Bright Lights on Feb. 16

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Sierra Pettengill’s documentary, “Riotsville, U.S.A.” comes to Bright Lights Cinema Series this Thursday, Feb. 16, followed by a talk with producer Sara Archambault. The film was created entirely from 1960s archival footage and begins with a bird’s eye view of what, at first, appears to be a city.  At closer glance, we realize it is… Read more »

CHILDREN READING TABLOID

New York Jewish Film Festival, January 12–23

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The cautionary alerts are everywhere throughout Manhattan. At the Center for Jewish History on West 16th just off Fifth Avenue, president Gavriel Rosenfeld writes that to understand “growing antisemitic threats facing American Jews, examining the past is indispensable for understanding the present.” At Bloomberg Philanthropies, former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg introduced showings of Arthur Miller’s… Read more »

Review: The Other Sides of Kansas

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Most people assume the Embarrassment, hailing from Kansas means that midwestern state’s Big College Town, Lawrence. But these punk rockers met in Wichita grade school in the 1970s, outsiders crashing an outsider style. Even at full tilt, the band looked like four high school chess clubbers chased by a non-threatening loner aura—they made hip seem… Read more »