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NINA MACLAUGHLIN

Latest Articles

Obama bicycle cycle

Mat Honan will start your new online fad
In case you haven’t already heard, Barack Obama is your new bicycle.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | February 27, 2008

Religious groups and the environment
They avoid religious cheerleading and tree-huggery; instead, their film demonstrates that when it comes to keeping the earth from getting wrecked beyond repair, it isn’t a matter of us versus them.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | February 20, 2008

Academy Award Nominated Shorts 2007

Unchallenging and underwhelming
“Madame Tutli-Putli,” about a woman on a nightmarish night train, has the look of an animated Egon Schiele drawing.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | February 13, 2008

Doodle bugs

Brushes with greatness
Every teen mag worth its weight in heartthrobs can tell you what your notebook doodlings reveal about your personality.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | January 02, 2008

Note By Note: The Making of Steinway L1037

Loving, but tedious
Tuners with perfect pitch tighten and loosen strings for hours by ear.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | December 26, 2007

Prison professor

A literary prize that really helps
There are lots of small presses. Dzanc Books, based near Detroit, is one of them, but it’s not like the rest.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | December 05, 2007

Deep thinking

Peter Thomson’s cleansing journey
Lake Baikal fills a fracture in the surface of Siberia that’s 25 million years old, 395 miles long, and a mile deep.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | November 19, 2007

Lake of Fire

Seeing choice, in shades of gray
We still have the right to choose, Kaye seems to say, but we should know what that choice looks like.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 24, 2007

King Corn

On a diabetic throne
We spend less money on food than any generation before us, but King Corn asks, at what price?

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 17, 2007

Angels in the Dust

A documentary of differences
Amid it all, the kids are kids: they dance and play and laugh, while not far from their mini-village lie acres and acres of graves.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 03, 2007

Touched by grace

Andre Dubus’s unending gifts
This, around November, when New England’s bones start to show — and I realized my heart was beating faster. The story had quickened my pulse.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 01, 2007

Vanaja

Artful and satisfying, if overlong
The colors — ocher and rose and royal blue — and the cast, unprofessional actors all, heighten the sensuality.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 24, 2007

Shadow of the House: Photographer Abelardo Morrell

Unfamiliarizing the most familiar
Allie Humenuk’s quiet documentary follows Morrell, who’s a professor at MassArt, over seven years in an examination of his process.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 05, 2007

Hatchet

A classic slasher eye roller
One misshapen maybe-man/maybe-ghost stalks a group of pretty young things and rips their limbs off with generous plumes of blood spray and strewn entrails.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 05, 2007

Deep Water

Isolation in the swollen seas
The challenge: sail around the world single-handed without stopping, 33,000 miles and 10 months of solitude, waves, and horizon.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 05, 2007

Pore and pour

The reader’s guide to intoxicating literature
This is for the misanthropes and wallflowers.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | August 31, 2007

The Last Atomic Bomb

Terror on repeat
It’s difficult to criticize a documentary about the horror of nuclear warfare and how to prevent it from happening again.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | August 01, 2007

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Box

Sort of like a soap opera
Once the suds of choice for dirty hippies, Dr. Bronner’s is now a staple of the Whole Foods set, and Sara Lamm’s documentary looks at Dr. B's “All One God Faith” mission.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | July 24, 2007

Cold comforts

Miranda July’s performance pieces
In photographs, indie wünderwaif Miranda July stares back at us with big, wet blue eyes, curls dangling about her face, lips glistening and parted just so.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | July 10, 2007