Arts & Culture

What’s constant in Katherine Dieckmann’s films – Motherhood (2009), Diggers (2006) and A Good Baby (2000) – is an attention to characters and place. Many of us in the world of film reside in the big coastal cities, but a good number come from somewhere else, smaller towns with subtle…

According to Forbes, Fan Bingbing made $17 million last year — more than any actress on the planet not named Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa McCarthy, Scarlett Johansson or Jennifer Aniston. The Chinese megastar is likely most familiar to American audiences for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but…

Our critic April Wolfe is filing updates all week from the Toronto International Film Festival. When a quiet film is set outside of the big cities — New York, L.A., Chicago — it’s often called a “slice of life.” But that’s ultimately a condescending designation; to the millions of people…

Our critic April Wolfe is filing updates all week from the Toronto International Film Festival. Writer/director Ivan I. Tverdovsky may be a twentysomething male, but in his sophomore feature, he exhibits a direct pipeline into the psyche of a lonely, middle-aged woman. In Zoology, a lowly zoo worker suddenly sprouts…

At first glance, TV (The Book), which came out last week, may look like a survey of what two respected TV critics consider to be the greatest television shows of all time. But, really, it’s a book about friendship. The joint authors of this tome, Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller…

Better Things’ creators seem to anticipate that you’ll judge Sam Fox’s parenting – and they make you pay for it. In the first scene, Sam (Pamela Adlon) scrolls through her phone on a mall bench while her youngest daughter, Duke (Olivia Edward), cries and pulls on her arm. It’s one…

To show all that he can do, to show something of what life’s actually like, Donald Glover first has to break your heart. Glover – the star, creator, and often writer of FX’s tense, downwardly mobile hangout comedy Atlanta – is best known, still, as a handsome clown on NBC’s Community, Dan…

“They should have sent a poet,” says Jodie Foster’s teary-eyed astronaut as she gazes upon the glory of space in Contact. It took nearly 20 years, but Terrence Malick has taken it upon himself to answer that call with Voyage of Time. Not every line rhymes, and some privilege sound…

Compelling television is a wonderful thing, except when the viewer is compelled to change the channel. The 2016 fall television season has a few promising shows and several, well, that only promise to battle each other for what show will be cancelled first. While some of the following shows probably…

Every week, we’re recapping season two of Degrassi: Next Class, episode by episode. Go Panthers, go! The Degrassi empire has been built on a solid foundation of “going there” in its story lines. They’ve covered just about everything, from school shootings to abortions, gender identity to alcoholism — and more…

Let’s be honest: A reality show on TLC can be hard to take seriously. The network has in many ways made a habit of creating shows that feel dangerously close to exploitation if they haven’t already crossed that line. In addition to being the progenitors of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, its current…