In a lush suburban neighborhood in the South, dogs bark, birds tweet, and the sun shines on basketball hoops hung over powered garage doors. By night, soccer fields and parking lots glow under streetlights, fluorescent crosses illuminate churches, and crickets chirp.

The establishing shots of this Tennessee neighborhood are almost never without at least one depraved trash humping geriatric, but even in their absence, the mawkish landscape still feels ripened with the particular kind of American malaise filmmaker Harmony Korine (Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Mr. Lonely) has gifted to his audience. …more

Techno usually reigns at Bar 25’s sprawling riverside club, but last weekend at Berlin’s second annual Down By the River Festival folk music held sway.

The festival brought more than twenty-four acts spanning the spectrum of music-made-by-people-with-actual-instruments from traditional singer-songwriters to raucous garage rockers. Some of the highlights included Chuckamuck, MoreEats and Coming Soon. …more

According to Banksy, his first film, made with footage shot by its subject, Thierry Guetta, is about “how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed.” …more

If you enjoy flipping through the first eighty pages of Vogue, Tanner Hall is the film for you. Evident throughout were the beautiful people, the beautiful clothes, the beautiful places. Less evident was the story. While it bore the trappings of a coming of age story of a group of young girls at boarding school, Tanner Hall, which premiered at the Gen Art Film Festival on Monday April 12, never penetrated the pouty-lipped veneer of their trust funded lives. …more

THE POET AND THE LADY OF THE CANYON

In 1967, two young Canadian songwriters met at songwriter’s workshop at the Newport Folk Festival, and had a romance. They were both about to become very famous, thanks to Judy Collins, who had introduced them and who would bring their songs to the Billboard Charts. Collins had released her cover of “Suzanne” the previous year, would release “Both Sides Now” the following year, and “Chelsea Morning” the year after that. …more