Capital New York

Why 'Bringing Up Baby,' a secretly dirty movie about crazy people, is a work of genius

It’s hard to believe now that Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby was not a hit at the time of its original release in 1938. In fact, it was such a flop that one of its stars, Katharine Hepburn, was famously labeled “box office poison” by movie exhibitors across the land, and ended up fleeing back to New York, into the welcoming embrace of the Broadway stage. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

Rose Byrne is having a serious moment

Australian actress Rose Byrne, currently appearing in both Bridesmaids and X-Men: First Class in theaters, has said that she feels more like “a character actress than a celebrity." Many actors make such a claim, but few deliver the goods. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

A Capital anticipation list: Thelma & Louise, Montauk, Heavy Warm-Up mixes, popsicles

Each week, Capital's editors and writers will offer a list of the events, activities, releases and personal obsessions that we are looking forward to during the next week.

This week or soon, we're talking about bike riding to Montauk, Thelma and Louise, popsicles and more. More

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By Gillian Reagan and Sheila O'Malley

A Capital anticipation list: Treemonisha, David Peach, David Comes to Life, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Freddy's falafel

Each week, Capital's editors and writers will offer a list of the events, activities, releases and personal obsessions that we are looking forward to during the next week. Here is a list of our anticipations. More

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By Gillian Reagan, Zachary Woolfe, Sheila O'Malley and Josh Benson

'Tree of Life': Terrence Malick tells the story of everything, in tiny little pieces

Terrence Malick's Palme d'Or winning Tree of Life is the story of three young brothers growing up in 1950s Texas, told in flashback from the perspective of one of the grown sons looking back on his childhood from the present day. It is also the story of the beginning of the Universe and the development of our cosmos. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

In 'House of Blue Leaves,' that terror and pity, missing in Stiller's performance, balance out in Edie Falco

Arthur Miller tells stories of the first opening of Death of a Salesman, and how, when the curtain fell, nobody clapped. The audience was stunned and silent. The lights came up, and throughout the theatre were men, middle-aged men, sitting in their seats, weeping, completely broken. That is catharsis. But the revival doesn't provide that. There is a universal truth in House of Blue Leaves, the "black heart's truth," even in its oddity and its lunacy, and the play, with its obsession with the culture of celebrity, seems even more prescient now than it did back in 1986. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

'Stuck Between Stations': Sam Rosen, Zoe Lister-Jones and the makings of a magical night, squandered

Brady Kiernan's first feature, Stuck Between Stations, should work better than it does, because the familiar elements are all here: two attractive, complex characters (Casper, played by Sam Rosen, and Rebecca, played by Zoe Lister-Jones), an evocative nighttime landscape (Minneapolis, beautifully shot by Minneapolis native Bo Hakala), and an ongoing sense of romantic potential. But something essential—the thing that's needed to distinguish it from all the "one magical night" movies that came before it—is missing. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

Lessons from 'Last Night': Eva Mendes is hot, and sometimes marriages aren't worth saving

Last Night, written and directed by Massy Tadjedin, is a cautionary tale of what happens when two drips are allowed to marry.

As played by Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington, Joanna and Michael are a young married couple who were college sweethearts and now live in a gorgeous Tribeca loft apartment designed to make native New Yorkers feel envious. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

'Roadie' rules: An everyday story about Long Island and Blue Oyster Cult, told extraordinarily

Jimmy Testagross in Michael Cuesta's Roadie has never made a pot of coffee. He does not know how to fold laundry. He still crashes on his friends' couches. He can fit all of his stuff into one bag. He is in his 40s. More

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By Sheila O'Malley

Anthems for dead nations: 'Cinema Komunisto' and 'The Miners' Hymns'

Cinema Komunisto begins with white words on a black screen: “This is the story of a country that no longer exists except in movies.” A cinephile’s dream, Cinema Komunisto, written and directed and produced by Mila Turaljlic, is an elegy not only to Yugoslavia, which, of course, no longer exists, but to the intense and focused movie industry that once thrived there during the reign of Franz Josip Tito, a movie buff if ever there was one. More

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By Sheila O'Malley