Arts & Culture

Quick, name an Archie Andrews personality trait. Yes, he’s red-headed and red-blooded, a horndog naïf with hashtag sideburns who is forever battled over by beauties he can’t be bothered to get anywhere with. But beyond that — who is he? Sometimes he’s in a sugar-sweet pop combo. Sometimes he tools…

I’m still trying to decide if Sundance’s decision to kick off its 2017 festival with An Inconvenient Sequel, Al Gore’s follow-up to his influential (and terrifying) climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, is an act of political confrontation or a sign of helplessness. (Or both?) What kind of message does…

A Dog’s Purpose, based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron, combines the philosophical belief that living beings are reborn into a different physical body after biological death with the voiceover narrative technique of Look Who’s Talking. The main character, Dog, dies in multiple wrenching scenes and is subsequently reborn;…

Gold’s value lies chiefly in the hearts and minds of those who seek it. The noble metal has driven humans to perpetrate ignoble acts on their quests to unearth it since at least 5000 B.C.E., when slaves divined for golden veins to lavish their Pharaohs with jewelry. The Incas even…

Delving into microeconomics and macroaggressions, Toni Erdmann, the dynamite, superbly acted third feature by writer/director Maren Ade, is social studies at its finest. This quicksilver, emotionally astute comedy operates on many different registers and moods: Whoopee cushions and gag teeth are part of the fun, but so too is a…