In January 2006, Eva Bordeaux Silverstein, founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn based Silver-Brown Dance Company, traveled to New Orleans for a cousin’s wedding. Although she had seen footage and heard stories about Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, she was nonetheless stunned by the destruction. read more »

A century after Ford’s Model T, Detroit rolls out a very different product — grassroots hustle, not assembly line. Invincible’s first LP embodies her show-don’t-tell ethos: “Every sentence cinematic/Stretching the canvas/ Paint a picture of war like Guernica.” read more »

Like its title character, Hancock is best described as a mighty mess, which bursts forth uncontrollably, leaves myriad loose ends dangling and is attributable to an utter lack of pedigree. The first black blockbusting superhero, John Hancock is an ageless, all-powerful immortal adrift in a film that does not retool previously established narrative and iconic properties. He carries a lot of baggage, lacking both a sense of purpose and a history. read more »

Trumbo A documentary, written by Christopher Trumbo and directed by Peter Askin Filbert Steps Productions, Reno Productions, and Safehouse Pictures, 2007   The blacklist was a time of evil, and no one on either side of it came through it untouched by evil. —Dalton Trumbo, 1970 In 1934, a young writer named Dalton Trumbo decided to try his luck in [...] read more »

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine directed by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, Art Kaleidoscope Foundation, 2008 With an oeuvre anchored in longevity and suspended by contradiction, 96-year-old Louise Bourgeois may be the most singularly fascinating contemporary artist, if by no means – and therein lies part of her poise – an art world [...] read more »

If you’re a grumpy, anti-capitalist, nearing middle-aged queer like myself, the June Gay Pride festivities can be really annoying — especially in New York. Because there are five boroughs, the events seem to go on forever. Rainbow striped flags, key chains and booty shorts sprout all over the city, defying the drab earth tones of your camouflage shorts and black tank top. Cheesy dance remixes of even cheesier top 40 songs drown out your reflective folk tunes. Yep, June is no bowl of organic free-trade cherries for the political queers. read more »

“If Allah wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men.” That was the rule for Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) in her Bangladesh girlhood in the 1970s. It was the rule when, at 17, she was sent far from home to be the wife of a man more than twice her age, whom she had never met. read more »

This festival, now in its eighth year, is unlike most in its insistence on community screenings throughout the world. The stories are humane, emotionally rich and often humorous despite the heavy subject matter. read more »

the 32 essays in That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation offer a radical skewering of LGBT institutions that mimic their straight counterparts. read more »

76-year-old songwriter and Grandmothers Against the War founder Joan Wile writes about the Times Square grandmothers’ attempt to dramatize their opposition to the war as grandmothers, as nurturers of the generation serving, killing and dying there read more »