For a decade and a half, Melina Matsoukas has helmed moody, swoony, sexy music videos that subvert expectations by turning an idol’s image inside-out — whether it’s re-imagining Snoop Dogg as a keytar-wielding lounge act (“Sensual Seduction”) or transforming Katy Perry into a grieving World War II widow (“Thinking of …
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Netflix’s BoJack Horseman has been one of the best shows on television since it debuted in 2014. It is a hilarious satire of celebrity and show business, while also being a profoundly sad portrait of depression, loneliness and substance abuse. Virtually the only complaint I’ve ever heard from anyone who’s …
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It is a truth universally recognized that Succession, the darkly funny HBO drama about a media-dynasty family eating their own, was a slow starter. And the early feint of introducing the series’ most recognizable face in the form of Brian Cox, supporting actor extraordinaire, only to have him lapse into …
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When HBO abruptly canceled Deadwood in 2006, a few weeks after production had wrapped on the sereis’ third season, no one in the cast or crew got to say a proper goodbye to each other, or the experience. For W. Earl Brown, who played Al Swearengen’s top henchman Dan Dority, …
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Margo Martindale has been a working actor all her adult life, but it wasn’t until she was in her late fifties that she became — as she’s described whenever she plays herself on BoJack Horseman —Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale. Her current hot streak began in 2011 when she played …
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Some folks mention The Chant, that rising sound that builds as the large man in the tribal mask walks out into sunlight: Mayafa! Ya hoo hoo! Mayafa! Ya hoo hoo! Others talk about The Laugh, the one that follows a threat that he will feed the talkative man before him …
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There’s a crisis at the Oscars this year — and it’s not about #OscarsSoWhite or #TimesUp, though those inclusion issues still deserve attention. Let’s call this catastrophe #OscarsSoMoney. It’s a year in which the Academy seems less interested in the quality of films than in the numbers they can attract …
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Every Friday, we’re recommending an older movie available to stream or download and worth seeing again through the lens of our current moment. We’re calling the series “Revisiting Hours” — consider this Rolling Stone’s unofficial film club. This week: Alex Pappademas on Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs. In …
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Over the last year or so, you could go to the movies and/or turn on your TV, and see feature-length docs on Grace Jones, the Tragically Hip, Lady Gaga, Elvis (both an original-recipe cradle-to-grave portrait and an extra-crispy dive into how his decline reflects our current national mindset), Eric Clapton, …
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Sharp Objects, the riveting HBO miniseries starring Amy Adams as an alcoholic cutter returning to her Missouri hometown to report on a pair of child murders, was one of the TV highlights of the summer. Much of its creative success can be attributed to the work of Adams and the …
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