Ambivalence is rarely a response a director would hope to elicit, but that is the sum effect of Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to the sensational A Prophet. The film follows the evolving relationship of Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), an Orca whale trainer, and Ali (Bullhead‘s Matthias Schoenaerts), a woefully down-on-his-luck deadbeat dad and struggling amateur boxer.

Despite failing to contain so much as a whiff of wizardry, there’s still something otherworldly to J.K. Rowling’s first venture into the world of adult literature.

One of the more anticipated documentaries of this season is The Central Park Five, an investigation on the wrongful conviction of five African-American and Hispanic youths for the rape and assault on a Caucasian jogger in Central Park in 1989.

What was it about the 1980s that made it so viable for artists in their mid-30s to mid-40s to become hit-makers? Peter Gabriel, who in the late ‘60s founded the progressive rock band Genesis, was 36 in the summer of 1986, when “Sledgehammer,” the lead single from his fifth solo album, So, reached Number One on Billboard’s Hot 100.

“I’ll build you up to pull you down, tie you to the stake and watch you burn in hell,” sang Thom Yorke on “Cuttooth,” one of the NEU!-ish B-sides to Radiohead’s 2001 single “Knives Out.” The lyrics could easily have referred to the plethora of young musicians whose voices sway between tenor and falsetto and are accompanied by glitch electronica, thus leading to the inevitable comparisons with Yorke himself—which is where 21-year-old South Londoner Sam Howard, aka Halls, slots neatly in.

On Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Folkadelphia, the online radio show of local station WXPN, arranged an intimate acoustic show at West Philly’s Studio 34 yoga/healing/arts center. The show featured newcomer Brendan Codey, Philadelphia folk institution Meg Baird, and headliner Angel Olsen.

The worth of the remix album has been questioned by critics countless times before, but when a band’s sound is completely reinvented, as is the case with The Twilight Sad’s No One Can Ever Know - The Remixes, the reasoning behind the album is pretty much self-evident.

Leo Tolstoy’s literary classic hits the silver screen in its umpteenth incarnation, this time in a glitzy A-list adaptation. Keira Knightley stars as the adulterous Anna, along with Kick-Ass‘s Aaron Taylor-Johnson as her young lover.

Featuring an impressive ensemble cast including Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Jackie Weaver, Chris Tucker, and Jennifer Lawrence, David O. Russell’s latest film, Silver Linings Playbook, continues a trend wherein the director presents emotionally stunted characters on a quest for personal growth.