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.
-
Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael's modern fable boasts a promising whimsical premise, but comes off disappointingly glib in execution. -
Ira Sachs' latest film, about a friendship between two boys, is Chekhovian in its subtlety but withholds too much and fails to attain the emotional impact for which it strives. -
Director Catherine Corsini sets the story of two women in love against a moment in the early 1970s when France was in a period of leftist ferment. -
Criminal is the second film in a year that separates mind from body when it comes to poor, gorgeous Ryan Reynolds. In this case, his mind goes in Kevin Costner. -
A war photographer's death leaves behind a family of men battling their own demons in the unusually structured film from Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier. -
The innovatively shot drama about a man attempting to protect the dignity of one boy offers little in the way of reflection, but its kinetic focus on one story strives to be utterly truthful. -
With Divergent, Hollywood turns to another hit young-adult trilogy for inspiration. Shailene Woodley stars as a 16-year-old searching for her place in a divided dystopian society. -
A new 3-D take on a formative Russian war story has its impressive moments, but ultimately feels contrived and confusing. -
With an eye on an international audience, this Shanghai-set adaptation of the 18th-century French novel focuses most of its energy on being visually appealing. Critic Mark Jenkins says the setting of the film isn't entirely justified — but it does serve as a glossily seductive distraction. -
Eric Lartigau's French psychological drama follows an aspiring photographer who assumes another man's identity. While the plot may lend itself to the tropes of a thriller, critic Mark Jenkins says it is more focused on the quiet, internal mechanisms of the protagonist's mind.
