Mark Jenkins
Mark Jenkins reviews movies for NPR.org, as well as for reeldc.com, which covers the Washington, D.C., film scene with an emphasis on art, foreign and repertory cinema.
Jenkins spent most of his career in the industry once known as newspapers, working as an editor, writer, art director, graphic artist and circulation director, among other things, for various papers that are now dead or close to it.
He covers popular and semi-popular music for The Washington Post, Blurt, Time Out New York, and the newsmagazine show Metro Connection, which airs on member station WAMU-FM.
Jenkins is co-author, with Mark Andersen, of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. At one time or another, he has written about music for Rolling Stone, Slate, and NPR's All Things Considered, among other outlets.
He has also written about architecture and urbanism for various publications, and is a writer and consulting editor for the Time Out travel guide to Washington. He lives in Washington.
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Director Antonio Mendez Esparza brings a static, theatrical approach to this story of a black single mother and the teenage son who attempts to shoulder his absent father's responsibilities.
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Writer-director Sarah Colangelo's film features a finely calibrated performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal as a teacher obsessed with a student. The result is a "keenly excruciating" tragedy.
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Reinaldo Marcus Green's exquisite drama examines, from three perspectives, the aftermath of the slaying of an unarmed black man; the film offers "neither unalloyed despair nor implausible hope."
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Filmmaker Robert Greene combines documentary and theatrical performance to tell the tale of a deadly mass deportation of copper miners in 1917.
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Regina Hall stars in this comedy set in a chain sports bar where young female servers scramble for tips, but the underwritten screenplay relies on a ceaseless stream of clunky one-liners.
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Writer/director Susanna Nicchiarelli's scrappy biopic, which features a standout performance from Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, examines the final days of the '60s icon's life.
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Rachel Dretzin's sometimes poignant film, inspired by Andrew Solomon's book, takes a narrowly focused look at kids who turned out differently than their parents thought they would.
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Writer/director Boots Riley's film, about a black telemarketer who adopts "white voice" and finds success, makes sharp observations before devolving into unfocused, bewildering absurdism.
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In this goofy Wild West farce from the Zellner Brothers, a fop (Robert Pattinson) and his miniature horse (Butterscotch) set out to rescue a young woman (Mia Wasikowska) who needs no rescuing.
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Criminals converge on a grubby hotel that doubles as an underground hospital in this pulpy, violent take on Los Angeles noir that's not as assured or as stylish as it needs to be.