Wait for The Drop: Hardy and Gandolfini shine in this Boston crime drama (RIP, James Gandolfini)

 

Crime dramas are a dime a dozen.

It’s a popular genre with plenty of easily recyclable tropes: the discount bins runneth over with Lock, Stock ripoffs and Danny Dyer Mockney crime capers. Then again, if you’re with Dennis Lehane, foremost authority on the seedy underbelly of Boston, and Michaël R.…

Finding Vivian Maier is a sharp-eyed portrait of a brilliant recluse

 

What is it about genius that fascinates us, especially unappreciated genius?

From Edgar Allen Poe to Vincent Van Gogh, there’s a certain narrative of tortured brilliance that we’ve become accustomed to. It’s rare, however, that the story begins with a box of undeveloped negatives going up for auction.…

Nightcrawler makes a scintillating roadshow out of the modern media circus

 

The best films are often a product of the age in which they were made (interesting word that, “product”).

Without the post-‘Nam disillusionment of the mid-‘70s, no Taxi Driver. Without the on-air suicide of TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck the same year, no Network.